Former Premier League referee Mark Halsey has said that VAR will not be scrapped and said that more referees need to stick with their on field decisions rather than always revert to VAR decisions.
Speaking to GB News, Mark Halsey said: "The Premier League invested a lot of money into VAR. VAR is here to stay. It's not VAR it's the personnel that's operating the system and we see so many inconsistencies.
"Right from the word go when it came into the Premier League. Mike Riley, he was in charge at that time, did not follow the protocol. So, what he did was he let the VAR make all the big decisions and you cannot do that. That is against the IFAB protocol. It has to be the on-field referee that makes a final decision.
"Now we've seen it over the years. It hasn't improved, it’s got worse and I thought it would get better under Howard Webb but obviously Howard's got a massive, massive task to bring the system to what everybody wants to see.
“We even saw it last night in the Manchester United and Newcastle game when Anthony Gordon was fouled in the box by Amrabat. That wasn't the fault of the referee, it happened so quickly and that is what VAR is there for.
“VAR should have recommended a review on that incident. It was a clear and obvious error. And that's a problem with VAR in the Premier League. They don't know when to come in, they don't know when not to come in. Their recognition of handball is all over the place. They don't know what unnatural and natural position of the arms are in certain phases of play.
“And that's the problem. It’s the training, the education and of our officials. It's not the officials, it’s the leadership and direction from the management and it is just not good enough at present.
“We cannot ever question the integrity of a match official, absolutely not. It's the competence of the officials that are operating that system and the IFAB protocol has been in since it first came into fruition.
“Now that needs an absolute overhaul now and I've seen recently that the PGMOL said we're getting 96% of our VAR decisions correct. I mean, that's absolutely nonsense. It's like if I marked it and you marked the paper it wouldn’t be the case
“Yes. It could be on all the off sides but what's the percentage on the key match incidents, the decisions that they're getting wrong?
“UEFA use it in competitions. Our clubs are in UEFA competitions. There’s no way that they’re going to vote to scrap VAR. We’ve got to improve the officials that operate it. That's the problem.
“I would have loved to use it. As a referee today and back when I was a referee you have to be mentally tough and mentally strong. And if you get called over to that monitor, have that mental toughness to stick with your onfield decision. You don't always have to agree with VAR.
“That's what we want to see; more referees sticking with original decisions.”
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