Premier League referees called to emergency meeting following weekend's VAR errors

Howard Webb has called a meeting of all his referees, following two huge 'human errors' by VAR officials in Premier League games at the weekend.

VAR has often caused controversy but it was ratcheted up on Saturday, following mistakes at offsides, as both Arsenal and Brighton were on the wrong end of decisions.

Roberto de Zerbi's side thought they'd taken the lead against Crystal Palace, when Brighton full-back Pervis Estupinan had the ball in the back of the net.

Arsenal on the other hand saw Ivan Toney's equaliser count, despite an obvious offside in the build up, with it later being revealed that Lee Mason had forgotten to draw lines on for the decision.

Gunners' legend Ian Wright was absolutely apoplectic at the decision that went against his former side, which cost them two points in their title race.

The Professional Game Match Officials ltd at least acknowledged the issues that had arisen, with the PGMOL chief Webb writing to the two clubs involved.

Now, according to the Mirror, the former referee, who took his role as chief refereeing officer in England last August, has now called a meeting for all the refs.

They have all been called to Stockley Park, where VAR officials sit to make decisions for games, on Tuesday in order to discuss exactly what went wrong.

Stockley Park's VAR set up. Image: Alamy

Former PGMOL boss Keith Hackett called for Mason, who made the error against Arsenal, to be sacked, taking to Twitter to say, "Howard Webb is now in charge of the PGMOL. One of the first things he should do is dismiss permanent VAR operator Lee Mason.

"This weekend Mason lets another referee down by not disallowing the Brentford goal for offside. These are decisions that VAR should get right."

Later adding, "He is a serial offender he must be fired. He is not good enough."

Mason and Mike Dean, who retired from being an on field ref at the end of the last Premier League season, are both permanent VAR officials.

Arsenal fans think that all five of the games they've failed to win in the league so far have been down to errors by officials, either on field or at Stockley Park.

They weren't the only ones aggrieved at the weekend, with Chelsea believing they should have had a penalty in their draw with West Ham.

However, that was at least the perfect example of things 'evening themselves up' over a season, after the Hammers were controversially denied an equaliser against their London rivals back in September.

Topics: VAR, Premier League, Arsenal, Brentford, Brighton And Hove Albion

Ryan Sidle

Ryan is a journalist for SPORTbible with over eight years of experience. Passionate about all sports, he mainly covers football and F1 - Daniel Ricciardo once spent an entire interview referring to him as 'Ryan Gosling,' still his proudest moment.

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