Football Australia’s General Manager of Elite Refereeing Alan Shortall has explained the decision making process behind the decision not to award a late winner to Western Sydney Wanderers in Saturday night’s 2-2 draw with Melbourne City.
The Wanderers saw a 95th minute header disallowed for offside with defender Anthony Pantazopoulos ruled to be coming back from an offside position when making contact with the header in what was a complicated decision for referee Adam Kersey and his team.
Replays showed that Pantazopoulos was offside when Alex Gersbach delivered a late free-kick from the right wing, however Wanderers striker Marcus Antonsson claimed he had gotten a touch on the ball before it reached the centre-back’s head.
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Had Antonsson been deemed to get his head to the ball, the goal would have stood.
However, after examining every angle available, VAR Shaun Evans could not definitively prove that the Swede had indeed connected, meaning they were unable to overrule the on-field decision of offside as there was no clear and obvious error to be corrected.
Watch the footage for yourself below.
“In this first instance, The on-field team have made a strong decision around assessing the offside element,” Shortall, who spent 19 years in elite refereeing with the NRL and joined FA in February, told aleagues.com.au
“The assistant referee has made a clear determination on the fact that Pantazopoulos is offside. The officiating team have then made a judgment on the field that he’s the player who’s actually touched the ball and had an influence in scoring the goal.
“The VAR has assessed that element as well and with no clear and obvious error confirmed that Pantazopoulos was the only player to touch the ball. From the evidence available, the decision to award and confirm the offside is correct.
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“If Antonsson was to actually touch the ball, this would then change the starting point for the Attacking Possession Phase (APP) and ultimately the way that the decision is actually assessed.
“As Antonsson is onside, a touch by him would make Pantazopoulos onside because it’s a new phase of play.”
Shortall acknowledged that communication around this incident from officials could have been stronger, emphasising that the referee can only rule on the footage available.
“I would love us to be able to go live to air with the VAR talking through that process, and actually providing transparency around the decision, he explained.
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“But the problem we have is that the VAR protocols don’t allow us to do that at this point.
“That’s where I would love it to be, that we can actually verbally educate people live, saying ‘this is exactly why we’ve made this type of decision’, which actually encourages the VAR to talk through that process slightly differently.”
