Pro Ref face fresh scrutiny after a weekend of disputed Arsenal and Manchester City decisions left VAR and Premier League under pressure once again.
It was not a good weekend for the organisation now known as Pro Ref.
Unless you suffered a heavy concussion at the weekend and this happens to be the first bit of Arsenal content you are reading on coming round, you will know that Arsenal conceded their first Premier League penalty in about 18 months on Saturday.
You will also be aware that Bruno Fernandes got to kick Phil Foden twice on Sunday evening and escape scot-free, while Foden was dispatched for an early bath for his reaction.
Much more egregious, though, was Manchester City’s winning goal in that game, scored, of course, by Erling Haaland.
Originally disallowed for an offside call against Haaland, who was not offside, the ball had arrived at his feet via a cross from the left. Enzo Fernandez had jumped for that cross in the middle of the six-yard box, attracting Lisandro Martinez towards him and thereby leaving Haaland free.
Fernandez was quite clearly offside at the time.
Pro Ref were quick to issue a statement after the game, part of which is below:
“The on-field decision was offside against Erling Haaland – that was checked by VAR and he was found to be in an onside position.
“In the same attack, it was established that Enzo Fernandez did not play the ball and therefore that makes any offside offence subjective, however, on this occasion, the VAR did not recognise the likely impact of his position and should have recommended an on-field review.”
Now, I do not know about you, but I would like to think any match official at any level of football could recognise the “impact” of Fernandez and his position in relation to this goal being scored, especially as the goal had been disallowed in the first instance and this was not simply a “Checked and cleared” situation.
That the VAR was unable to do so raises serious questions about his ability and suitability for this particular role.
Obviously, it is also annoying for us as Arsenal fans that City managed to secure a 1-0 win at their local rivals despite being a man light for so long.
I suppose it would have been even more annoying had David Raya not made an incredible penalty save from Enzo Le Fee the previous night.
Games in the north of England are usually troublesome for Arsenal for several reasons.
First, as I know from my time in Leeds, everybody hates us.
Second, whoever our hosts happen to be, they are essentially allowed to do whatever they want to us, see Matty Cash and John McGinn at Villa Park two weeks ago, while any semblance of retaliation from Arsenal is met by the referee turning into the Demon Headmaster.
Add a late evening kick-off, with everybody having been down the pub for hours, and Arsenal are met by the kind of hostility reserved for Rocky Balboa as he walks to the ring in Moscow for the climactic battle of Rocky IV.
One of the things I will forever love Mikel Arteta for is his creation of a team capable of “win in any context”.
On Saturday evening, we saw why that has become so important.
Sunderland are a big, physical side and referee John Brooks let them be big and physical. I do not know how many incidents of shirt-pulling he allowed from our hosts, but there were plenty.
We saw Gabriel booked for trying to play peacemaker and Kai Havertz booked for a nothing foul by the corner flag.
In the UK, there is a lot of talk about “two tier policing”. Here, “two tier refereeing” was very much in evidence.
Sunderland were allowed to take an average of 22 seconds per throw-in, while Arsenal had a throw overturned because Riccardo Calafiori had taken 18 seconds.
Sunderland had 12 throws that took longer than 20 seconds and three that took longer than 40, yet Arsenal were the ones punished.
And that is before we get to the penalty decision, awarded for a “foul” by Ezri Konsa on Dan Ballard.
I will admit it looked like a penalty to me initially. On the replays, though, it becomes clear that Ballard had grabbed Konsa’s arm and managed to pull him over on top of him in a “judo roll”, a phrase used independently by Arteta and Martin Keown on Saturday night.
The VAR conversation revealed that the referee saw Konsa as “all over him facing the wrong way” when he was not, yet somehow he did not see Ballard’s part in proceedings.
I can accept that part of this is simply what happens to us in the north of England on a Saturday night and, taken in isolation, I can forgive Brooks for awarding the penalty against Arsenal.
But what is the point of Warwickshire’s Stuart Attwell sitting in the booth and checking and clearing the decision when he should be able to see that, if anyone is being fouled, it is Konsa?
I think Arsenal were unlucky here. For right or wrong, we are seen as the grappling kings of the penalty area and new measures have been brought in to stop us, therefore they must be used.
In addition to those measures, we have also been told a very high bar is required for a VAR overturn, except on Sunday, as it turned out.
So, Arsenal were doubly stitched up.
Perhaps Attwell was cognisant of that in clearing the penalty, but it increasingly feels as though officials see what they want to see and use the technology to support their particular viewpoint.
I promise you I wrote the above before this justification piece from Chris Foy, not Hoy, in the Guardian, and it was not even the worst thing they published in relation to this game.
Absolute state of this from Barney Ronay
— Daily Cannon (@dailycannon.com) 14 September 2026 at 09:12
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Thankfully, Dave the Save continued his ascension to Godlike status, rendering the wrong decision moot, before Bruno Guimaraes started the Sunderland hangovers early with a firecracker from the edge of the box.
Back to the officials.
I think I have mentioned before that I have friends up in Leeds and, perhaps unsurprisingly, these northerners do not have a lot of time for Arsenal.
Over the years, I have had to listen to talk about us being not strong enough, not good enough, too reliant on set pieces, too many cheats, too hard, too good.
I think that viewpoint is particularly interesting given the concentration of referees hailing from the Midlands and the North West.
I do not believe any referee is consciously biased, but I do know that northerners do not like Arsenal very much and I think that affects how they perceive incidents.
On that note, James Bell, the VAR at Villa Park two Mondays ago, is apparently a Sheffield Wednesday fan.
Recently, the KMI Panel announced that they were 5-0 on the fact that Bruno G should have had a penalty at Villa Park and Ian Maatsen a red card for the clearest scissoring tackle in the penalty area you will ever see.
“Checked and cleared” within seconds, that one.
How? Was it as simple as, “Oh he’s an Arsenal player, the soft lad must have been diving”?
I remember the words of my mate Steve the Ref, telling me I was going to hate VAR because “all it will do is add another layer of subjectivity to the game”.
Of course, it has made some things better, offsides, for example, Sunday notwithstanding, but that seems to be where we are now.
So many pairs of eyes on a game that usually required only two at any given moment, endless delays, matches that go on forever and conclusions nobody seems particularly happy with.
To quote my friends, and I hope yours, the Specials, “progress would be wonderful, if only it would stop”.
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