VAR Unveiled: Examining the Newcastle vs Wolves Penalty Controversy

Newcastle’s Fabian Schar won a questionable VAR decision penalty when he clashed with Wolves’ Hwang Hee-chan in their 2-2 draw. Howard Webb, the Premier League’s head of refereeing, said VAR should have asked the referee to explain his decision.

“We want VARs to check, and if they disagree with the decision, ask the referee what they saw,” Webb said.

The incident happened in first-half injury time, scoring 1-1. Referee Anthony Taylor pointed to the spot when Hwang challenged Schar for the ball in the Wolves box, but it seemed that Schar kicked the ground and was already falling before any contact. VAR checked the decision for a long time but did not overturn it, and Callum Wilson scored from the spot to give Newcastle the lead.

Wolves boss Gary O’Neil was furious after the match and called the decision “outrageous.”

O’Neil has been vocal about refereeing and VAR this season, as his team has suffered from several wrong decisions, such as a penalty not given to Wolves at Manchester United and one wrongly awarded to Sheffield United in their dramatic win over Wolves.

On Match Officials Mic’d Up, a Premier League Productions show that reviews VAR decisions from the last months, Webb admitted there was a mistake and said video officials are now being encouraged to challenge on-field referees for more information when a decision is doubtful.

“VAR should not re-referee the game and should only intervene for clear situations when errors happen on the field. In this situation, we see Hwang does not touch the ball; it is kicked onto him by Schar, and then there is contact between the players,” Webb, who is in charge of Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL), the group that officiates all Premier League matches.

VAR is a system that helps the referee make decisions. It should only be used when the referee makes a big mistake. In this case, we see Hwang and Schar touch each other, but the referee thinks Hwang kicked Schar. If we watch the video again, we see Hwang did not kick Schar very hard, and Schar also moved his foot toward Hwang.

We think the referee made this big mistake, and VAR should have told him to recheck the video. We are telling the VARs to do this in the future. They should ask the referee what he saw, and if it is very different from what the video shows, they should tell him to look at the video again and change his decision if he wants to. This is how VAR can help the referee avoid big mistakes.