Simon Jordan absolutely grills Howard Webb over VAR, it got heated

Simon Jordan and Howard Webb furiously clashed as the talkSPORT personality questioned why wrongly called VAR incidents were not made available.

Former Premier League referee Webb made an appearance on Monday Night Football alongside Jamie Carragher and Gary Neville, where he showed clips revealing audio during VAR incidents.

After his showing on Sky Sports, he went back-and-forth with Jordan, who quizzed Webb on why wrong VAR calls were not shown to the public.

The Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) refereeing officer defended the process his team goes through as he had several heated exchanges with the former Crystal Palace chairman.

On talkSPORT, Jordan asked Webb: "It’s no good running clips of how it works, what I want to know is why it doesn’t work?

"What I want you to show me is why the decisions you guys got wrong, were wrong?

"It’s now gone from referees accused of making mistakes to VAR exacerbating the problem rather than reducing it."

Roberto De Zerbi on the touchline during Tottenham vs. Brighton. Image: Alamy

Jordan was referencing the mistake that took place in Brighton's 2-1 defeat to Tottenham last month. Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg seemed to have fouled Kaoru Mitoma, but the match referee failed to award a penalty.

PGMOL subsequently apologised to Roberto De Zerbi's side.

Responding to Jordan, Webb said: "We acknowledged that particular situation as being incorrect.

"We looked at why we didn’t get it right. We have a duty and obligation to look at the game and say 'right okay, let’s talk about where we fell short, what was it that led us to getting to the wrong outcome'.

"And we shared that information with the management team, we do that with the officials, and we’ll try to take that learning into the next game and reduce the errors."

He added: "We’re judged by an independent panel so we’re not marking our own homework on this. We’ll be graded next year but my target will be to reduce those errors."

However, Jordan didn't take too kindly to Webb's explanation as he urged PGMOL to show both correct and incorrect VAR calls.

"That’s the battleground. It’s great that you show people how it works," he explained. "The next step surely has to be to show people when it doesn’t work, clearly they can see it for themselves, but why?

“And then you get people on board with understanding how errors get made because right now people are suggesting there’s a lack of accountability. There’s no measureables, there’s no benchmarks and the room needs to be won back."

He added: "Do you want your boys and girls to have a voice? Because I want you to have a voice.

"I want you to be out after the game, not you, I mean the individual official on match day and having the same scrutiny and accountability, individually, as the players and the managers have.

"Do you want that?"

Webb continued: "I certainly want to humanise them, Simon, for the people they are. I worry just a little bit about the dynamic of the moment they are spoken to when something has gone wrong.

"We are not in the same world as players and coaches who are interviewed when they’ve scored a hat-trick or made a substitution late in games to change the game."

Jordan replied: "But you are in the same space when managers lose games, teams are getting relegated and booed off the pitch."

Webb said: "That’s true. That also happens and of course we accept that as well. In our world, I can foresee a situation where we’d only get spoken to when there’s a mistake or perceived mistake.

"We are looking at all sorts of aspects in ways we can humanise. I think if people see us as the footballing professionals that I believe we are and are contributing to the game positively most of the time, then the acceptance level will be better and change the way we are perceived."