Gary Lineker Advocates for VAR Appeal System Following Controversial Arsenal-Brighton Penalty Decision
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VAR Penalty
Gary Lineker, the host of Match of the Day, recently discussed the potential for a VAR appeal system in football. This came in the wake of Arsenal’s draw at Brighton, where a contentious penalty decision was made.
Gary Lineker said “It’s a costly one for Arsenal. I know I’m like an old record on this, but that’s why it has to go to an appeal system where the team can go ‘Hang on a minute, we want to look at that particular thing’, and then the referee or the VAR looks at it and they decide whether it is a foul or it is not a foul.”
Lineker further elaborated on the nuances of the proposed system, explaining how it could potentially work.
Gary Lineker said “And you keep your appeal if you’re right and you lose it if you don’t. So the teams will have to be clever about when they appeal and when they don’t appeal. And it also stops them looking at every single incident.”
In the context of the controversial decision in the Arsenal-Brighton match, Lineker expressed his belief that the referee, Anthony Taylor, would have changed his decision if an appeal system was in place.
Gary Lineker said “I think they would have done that. Saliba knew, he said straight away, ‘I touched it, I touched it’. He knew and they would have appealed. Then he’d have gone to the monitor and I genuinely think that Anthony Taylor would have changed his mind.”
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