HOWARD WEBB defended VAR’s controversial Rashford offside decision while admitting it got two big decisions wrong recently.
The PGMOL chief was asked about VAR’s application ahead of Chelsea’s clash against Fulham.
Sky Sports pundits Gary Neville and Jamie Carragher questioned Webb about a controversial decision which resulted in a Manchester United goal against Manchester City last month.
Bruno Fernandes scored after Rashford ran onto a pass from an offside position, and although he did not touch the ball he appeared to distract Ederson and Manuel Akanji.
But Webb claimed that Rashford was not interfering with play, depending on how the laws of the game are interpreted, so VAR was correct to allow the goal to stand.
He said: “Over time the laws of the game have moved in a direction where to be penalised in an offside position without touching the ball you have to do one of four quite specific things.
“The aim was to be consistent in the application, Rashford doesn’t exactly do one of those four things but you could argue he does.
“There is definitely an interpretation needed, there’s some element of subjectivity about it. On the day the officials felt he didn’t interfere as per the way it is defined in the law.
“That was supportable, I think the game has told us that there is an expectation that situation should have led to an offside.
“We’re here to serve the game, we’re here to listen to the game. I think if that exact circumstance happens again you would probably see an outcome now.
HOW TO GET FREE BETS ON FOOTBALL
“You can’t say that was an incorrect decision…(but) it is clear that most people would expect that to be offside if that exact same thing happened again.”
However Webb was prepared to admit that VAR is not always correct and recently should have acted to fix two wrong decisions.
He held his hands up and said fouls committed by Fabinho and Andy Carroll should led VAR to overturn their yellow cards into reds.
Webb added: “Certainly the Fabinho one was one that we actually acknowledged publicly that it should have led to a video review.
“The referee showed a yellow card, the VAR did not feel that it reached that threshold of being a clear error. We feel that was wrong, we feel it should have got involved and overturned the decision.
“You can make a similar case for the tackle by [Andy] Carroll on Christian Eriksen which was not a great tackle.”
