Referees are set to make in-stadium announcements about the outcome of video reviews in the Premier League from the start of next season — and Liverpool manager Arne Slot isn’t a fan.
The protocol is currently being trialed in this season’s English League Cup semifinals, with a first announcement coming in the first leg of Tottenham’s match with Liverpool when a goal for Spurs was ruled out for offside.
Tony Scholes, the Premier League’s chief football officer, told reporters the protocol could now be used in league play, too.
Asked for his reaction, Slot said “for me, that’s not necessary”, but he did acknowledge it might benefit match-going fans in the stadium.
“If the fans like it and it’s something nice for the fans, let’s do this,” said Slot, speaking Wednesday ahead of the second leg against Tottenham on Thursday, which Liverpool goes into trailing 1-0. “But I wonder if we are all going to like this.”
On that occasion in the first leg, referee Stuart Attwell used the public address system to announce via a wireless microphone that the goal scored by Tottenham striker Dominic Solanke in the 76th minute had been ruled out for offside. Attwell spoke after a VAR review lasting around two minutes.
Tottenham manager Ange Postecoglou wasn’t impressed with the historic moment at the time, saying: “If people think that announcement tonight added anything to the game, I’m sorry. I mean, really, just get on with it.”
Slot was more concerned that the officials chose to make an announcement about what he described as an “obvious” decision rather than on a more contentious call, when Tottenham midfielder Lucas Bergvall avoided getting a second yellow card for a foul on Kostas Tsimikas.
While Tsimikas was off the field, waiting to come back on having received treatment, Bergvall scored the only goal of the game.
“I think the one we were more interested in was why he didn’t give the second yellow card and that is something he didn’t have to explain,” Slot said.
Semi-automated offside technology might come into the Premier League even earlier — before the end of this season.
Initially, the technology was supposed to be brought in after one of the international breaks in the first half of this season but was delayed because of issues in the testing process. Scholes said progress had been made in recent weeks.
“We believe it to be the most accurate and the most future-proof system as well,” Scholes said. “I have to confess, given the difficulties that we had over the first few months of the season, I had severe doubts about this, but the progress made over the last four to six weeks has been significant.”
Scholes said introducing the technology with potentially only a handful of games to go would not create an integrity issue.
League officials have said they hope it will reduce the time it takes to check for offside by an average of 31 seconds.
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AP soccer: https://apnews.com/hub/soccer
Steve Douglas, The Associated Press
