Steve Cooper questions VAR call at Selhurst Park

Steve Cooper has called for better communication from the Premier League following a controversial Video Assistant Referee (VAR) decision in their 2-2 draw against Crystal Palace.

Early in the second half, the Foxes took a 2-0 lead following good link-up play between Wilfred Ndidi and Stephy Mavididi. However, Jean-Philippe Mateta slotted the ball into Leicester’s net within a few minutes, halving Palace’s deficit. The goal was initially ruled out as offside, but VAR intervened, and after much consideration, reversed the decision and deemed it a legitimate goal.

Premier League shares baffling offside image

However, the image the Premier League provided for the decision was baffling. It completely omitted the Leicester player (James Justin) with whom the offside lines had been drawn. Gary Lineker and Mike Dean also questioned the angles used by the VAR.

The Premier League later posted the entire image, but even that looked like a poor angle from which to make a decision. An account on X (formerly known as Twitter) shared an image suggesting that Mateta had, in fact, been offside and that the VAR officials had drawn the lines incorrectly.

First offside mistake by VAR in the 2023-24 Premier League season.

❌Mateta was OFFSIDE in Crystal Palace’s disallowed goal against Leicester City.

The assistant referee initially disallowed the goal, but the VAR incorrectly overruled him. https://t.co/XZJ5ooWTHb pic.twitter.com/3SGB0P2nhA

— Football Offsides (@FutOffsides) September 14, 2024

Steve Cooper demands proper offside image

Embed from Getty Images

In the post-match interview, Cooper demanded that the Premier League show the proper offside image for the goal.

“I really want to see the absolute offside image of the first goal. If it is, no problem, we’ll hold our hands up, but we can’t be calling offsides on suggestions, which is only what we’ve seen at the moment. We need to get that image quickly off the Premier League. If it is, I’ll accept it.

“I’ll be straight on to the club, and I’m sure they are, to see the image. I’ve not seen it yet. We definitely need to see it, we need to contact the Premier League and get a clear still of the image that shows he was offside. We’ll accept it, if so.”

Given that VAR is only supposed to overturn decisions where the officials have made a clear error, the decision to deem the goal onside from a poor angle is puzzling.