VAR was heavily involved during Tottenham's win over West Ham(Image: Marc Atkins/Getty Images)

Premier League appeal ruling makes mockery of VAR as Arsenal make William Saliba red card decision

22 Oct 2024, 16:00 by Lee Wilmot · football.london

Arsenal have made the decision not to appeal against William Saliba's red card against Bournemouth on Saturday. But should the option even be available to them?

Saliba saw red for bringing down Evanilson just over the halfway line in the Saturday evening clash with Bournemouth at the Vitality Stadium. It caused controversy, given how far the Cherries striker was from David Raya's goal and that a yellow card was the on-field decision.

Jarred Gillett asked Rob Jones to take a look at the pitchside monitor and the yellow was upgraded to a red on review. There were few complaints from Saliba and his manager did not have too much to say afterwards.

Arteta seemed slightly perturbed by the VAR getting involved when he said: "The referee decided to give a yellow and then a red card. It was a decision made on the pitch. That decision was changed."

'Referee's Call' has been brought in this season, giving the on-field officials more responsibility. VARs will not get involved in subjective calls, only stepping in to change decisions if a clear and obvious error has occurred.

The Saliba yellow was therefore deemed a clear and obvious error. When asked if they would appeal, Arteta said that would be in the club's hands, rather than his, but he made his position quite clear after the game on Saturday.

"I don't think it will change twice, the decision has been made," he admitted. But decisions are changed twice, which in itself seems mad to think.

VAR was brought in to improve refereeing decisions in this country - and across the world - in an attempt to eradicate glaring errors. Errors continue to be made though.

Arsenal had the right to appeal the decision based on wrongful dismissal and being able to appeal something is a basic human right isn't it? Except I have to question just how many people need to look at something before a final decision is made - rightly or wrongly?

The on-field referee makes his decision based on what he sees in real time. He does not have the benefit of replays like we do watching at home. When VAR came in, we got second opinions - whether we liked them or not - giving on-field referees the chance to watch a replay if it was deemed necessary.

So now we have a referee on the pitch making a decision - with the help of his assistants and a VAR and assistant VAR putting their two pennies worth in - albeit not as regularly now due to Referee's Call being implemented.

An appeals process then lets an appeals panel go over the footage and have their say on the matter. They overturned the decision to send off Bruno Fernandes for his red card against Tottenham, which was the right call, making a mockery of my argument somewhat, but that's more down to the stupidity of the VAR not overturning the decision in the first place. And perhaps that's why an appeals process is still in place, because despite having access to countless replays, VARs are still making mistakes.

Perhaps we should just employ the appeals panel as VARs, since they have the final say? We're going through four people's decision-making, with two of those watching replays on TV in Stockley Park and still deeming them to have made mistakes by letting clubs appeal and get decisions overturned.

As I've said above, being able to appeal something is a basic human right, but when some people have already made a judgement call having looked at it on screen, what makes the appeals panel higher and mightier than those on matchdays to have the final say with the same footage?

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