FA must use common sense as Liverpool charge would be mad after VAR admission

At least one Liverpool player is technically open to an FA charge after venting his frustrations following a VAR shambles. Common sense simply has to prevail.

Alexis Mac Allister of Liverpool keeps the ball from Destiny Udogie of Tottenham Hotspur during the Premier League match between Tottenham Hotspur and Liverpool FC at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on September 30, 2023 in London, England.

There is an urgent need for the FA to exercise common sense as one or more Liverpool players face possible charges.

The fallout from the VAR error in Liverpool vs Spurs has been in line with the magnitude of the mistake. Surely the worst blunder in the Premier League since the technology was introduced, it has remained a talking point more than 48 hours after the match ended.

Far more galling than a bad subjective call, this is an error that has been specifically borne of the technology. Of course, Liverpool would not have been awarded the goal without VAR either, with the on-field assistant wrongly calling offside, but a failure to intervene on the basis of an erroneous ‘check complete’ call when the opposite was intended is far harder to stomach than a rogue flag.

Never before have all of the officials been near-instantly aware that a grave game-altering error has been made, yet felt powerless to alter it. Presumably, nobody was prepared to make the call that the circumstances warranted overriding VAR protocol — and with Spurs scoring soon afterwards, the situation rapidly became utterly irrevocable.

Common sense certainly did not prevail. But there is a chance for the FA, at least, to use some of it as it assesses the fallout from the incident.

Naturally, Liverpool players and staff were aghast at the outcome. To his eternal credit, Jürgen Klopp was remarkably restrained in his post-match interview given the circumstances, but some of his players let their emotions get the better of them a little more.

In particular, Alexis Mac Allister has undoubtedly opened himself up to the technical possibility of an FA charge, as the Metro reports. In a heated and since-deleted exchange with international teammate Cristian Romero on Instagram, the Liverpool midfielder said the Spurs victory was ‘normal when you have 12 players’.

By the letter of the law, the FA probably feels bound to find that this is questioning the integrity of a match official. That warrants a charge. But in the circumstances, to enforce that would be utterly ridiculous.

The integrity of the match officiating is already a lost cause. A perfectly valid goal was chalked off because of an administrative error: the PGMOL has admitted that the VAR process failed miserably. While the referees were not on Tottenham’s side, as Mac Allister implied, they categorically handed Spurs the victory by way of their decision-making.

Players are already expected to be like robots in the sheer amount of football they are made to play. Now, they are being asked never to show any emotion either. Frankly, even Mac Allister’s outburst is relatively restrained in the context of the scale of the injustice perpetuated against Liverpool.

It’s too late to salvage much from this incident, which has left the reputation of VAR and the PGMOL in tatters. But the FA, at least, can use a little bit of common sense, ensuring that the situation does not contrive to get even worse.