PGMOL chief refereeing officer Howard Webb has shared his opinion on Jeremy Doku's controversial high kick on Alexis Mac Allister in Liverpool's clash with Man City earlier this month.
"If the referee gives it on the field, it would have been a check complete by the VAR and equally, having not given it, it's also check complete," said Webb.
"You hear Michael Oliver say the balls in between two players going together. The ball is too low to head. Doku, lifts his foot to play the ball, and he does make contact on the ball.
"And yes, we know there's some contact on Mac Allister as well, Mac Allister comes into him, Mac Allister is not really playing the ball either. So, I understand why it's split opinion.
"I think it would have been checked completely either way, not wanting to re-referee the gaming situations that are not really clear which is what we think the VAR is for in this situation. The VAR stays out of it.
"I think that is what we would we would expect. You want to know with clarity, with certainty that you're making the right decision. You know, you don't always have sufficient information in the moment to make that decision.
"Clearly, Michael [Oliver] didn't have it in this situation. And then the VAR looks at it and doesn't see a clear and obvious situation. You see something that's pretty subjective and therefore stays out of it, and the feedback we've had from people within the game is that this is a pretty subjective situation, it's split opinion.
"So on that basis, the VAR, you know, working to that high threshold kind of followed the kind of the right course in not getting involved."
"Yeah, I think penalty situations at any moment in a game of this magnitude are obviously always important, so you've got to stay focused first minute right through to the end.
“Towards the end of the game, maybe players in some situations will look to use contact to go down. Sometimes that's not what happens in this case, but you need to be aware of the way that players might behave in the later stages of the game, hence the reason that you need that level of of certainty. But yeah, you're just aware of the consequence of those big decisions around the penalty area and the need for certainty.”
