News

'Football is scared to move forward'

Video assistant referees were trialled in France’s friendly against Spain in midweek - and had an immediate effect.

Antoine Griezmann’s first-half header was retrospectively disallowed due to offside, while a Gerard Deulofeu goal was allowed to stand, having initially been ruled out.

"Look, I watched the game against Spain and I moved up after the game and thought ‘we are really stupid, why did that not happen 15 years ago?’," Arsène Wenger said at his pre-Manchester City press conference. "That shows just that the football world is still a regressive world that is scared to move forward and I believe that that should have happened a long, long time ago.

"Personally, I always was in favour of it and I said always that the first thing to deal with is the offsides and the game has shown that. If we just look at the many impacts on that, in the game it shows that first of all that you would have gone to completely different conclusions if you did not have video, because France would have won the game.

"Secondly, I believe as well it will of course create more justice and the second just by coincidence of the two, is that the two incidents were in favour of the home team.

"The third thing I think is that it will definitely cut out all the interference and desire to corrupt referees. That exists in the world, you know. This kind of video will be a very good plan to fight against that as well."

 

More quizzes coming soon!

See Full List

Fixtures & Results

Premier League
Ticket Info