Sick of hearing about VAR? Perhaps this one’s not for you…
After another round of FA Cup action, VAR has been very much back amongst the headlines.
Its latest controversy surrounded the decision to rule out a Juan Mata goal for Manchester United in their 2-0 victory over Huddersfield Town on Saturday evening.
Although the Spaniard believed he’d doubled United’s lead, referee Kevin Friend asked for the decision to be reviewed. A minute or so later it was deemed that Mata (or at least his kneecap) was in an offside position.
Although few can have too many complaints with the decision itself, many viewing BT Sport’s coverage of the game were outraged by the graphics used to help explain the decision. Pictures showing the moment Ashley Young played the pass to Mata were soon displayed on screen, although the lines used to presumably help decide whether the passage of play was offside or not were clearly not parallel with the markings of the penalty area. Worse still, they weren’t even straight.
After the images were widely ridiculed on social media, HawkEye Innovations, the company responsible for supplying the images to TV broadcasters, have apologised for sending the wrong image.
‘A technical issue led to an incorrect graphic being provided by Hawk-Eye to @btsportfootball last night,’ they explained on their official twitter account.
‘To confirm, the #VAR saw the correct image with the correct lines to make the decision. This was a case of the wrong image being provided to the broadcaster and we apologise.’
A technical issue led to an incorrect graphic being provided by Hawk-Eye to @btsportfootball last night. To confirm, the #VAR saw the correct image with the correct lines to make the decision. This was a case of the wrong image being provided to the broadcaster and we apologise. pic.twitter.com/QqbAWVfbi1
— Hawk-Eye Innovations (@Hawkeye_view) February 18, 2018
Something tells us this won’t be the last VAR-related controversy we see this season.
