“VAR is starting to tire me this story. We put millions in there, we don’t even know how to use it. “The Angers defender Romain Thomas had not tried to hide his frustration against the video assistance at the microphone of Amazon at the end of the frustrating defeat of his team (2-1) on the lawn of PSG there at ten days. The fault in particular with this penalty, awarded in the 83rd minute to the Parisians for a hand from Angevin Pierrick Capelle on a header from Mauro Icardi, while the Argentine center forward had committed a fault a few seconds before on Thomas.
If the boss of the French referees Pascal Garibian had already recognized an error in this sequence, the technical direction of the refereeing (DTA) went further on Tuesday morning by broadcasting the video shot that evening in the Replay Center, the room where the Video referees officiate during Ligue 1 matches. A sequence in which we see how assistants Jérémie Pignard and Aurélien Berthomieu simply “forgot” to check whether the Argentinian had made a mistake at the start of the action.
The video indeed shows the duo, assisted by a service provider from the company Hawk Eye which operates the video assistance system, focus on a possible offside of Kylian Mbappé, centering on the action, before determining that yes , Pierrick Capelle did a foul hand on the head of Icardi. “I recommend you watch. I make you a hold point on the hand. We checked the APP ”, explains the VAR referee to Bastien Dechepy, his counterpart in the field.
A sentence which means that the “Attacking possession phase”, that is to say the action which leads to the goal, is free from contentious situations. Romain Thomas may indicate that he was the victim of a foul, the man with the whistle thinks that this option has been ruled out by video assistance, while he is content to look on the screen if the hand is punishable. or not. “They messed up, admits ex-referee Stéphane Lannoy, deputy technical director in charge of video assistance. This penalty should not have been awarded. “
Mbappé in a white area of the Parc des Princes
“They found themselves in a tunnel effect, continues Pascal Garibian, boss of the tricolor whistles. But the more serenity there is on the field, the more we are able to capture these indicators, this information transmitted by the players. “
Another contentious point in this meeting, the equalization of midfielder Danilo Pereira from the head to the 69th. If the Portuguese is not offside, the video assistance tries to focus on Kylian Mbappé, decisive passer, to determine if he is. Problem, the world champion is off-center in relation to the action and is only visible on a single shot of the director, that of a camera placed vertically over the action which does not allow to draw lines to determine whether his position is lawful or not.
It is therefore impossible to use video assistance to determine whether the goal should be awarded or not. In doubt, Bastien Dechepy grants the goal to the Parisians. In this specific case, the technical direction of refereeing (DTA) admits to being powerless and refers to the match broadcaster, Amazon Prime that evening.
