Manchester United star Juan Mata has come out in support of the Video Assistant Referee [VAR] system despite having his goal disallowed against Huddersfield Town at the weekend.
Mata’s goal at the end of the second half at the St. John Smith’s Stadium on Saturday was chalked off by VAR after he was found offside by the tightest of margins.
The decision did not affect the result of the game as Manchester United were already ahead in the game and Romelu Lukaku added a second after the break to ease the Red Devils into the quarter-finals of the FA Cup.
Despite VAR preventing him from getting on the scoresheet, the Spaniard has come out in full support of using more technology to negate refereeing errors in the game.
He stressed the importance of results in today’s football and feels a wrong call from the referee could have big consequences for the teams affected.
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However, he insisted that there are still a few chinks in the VAR armour and feels there should be more pace and clarity brought into the final decision making process.
Mata wrote on his personal blog: “A lot has been said about the goal that I scored and was disallowed by the VAR. It was my first time, a new experience for me [and for almost all of us, actually].
“The truth is, once you have celebrated the goal you are surprised and disappointed [as you could see on my face], but this time, luckily, that goal was not needed to win.
“As I said in a few interviews after the game, even if this time it didn’t play in our favour, I think in the future the VAR will be helpful for the referees, who always have a difficult job, and eventually it will bring more justice to football.
“Given that an unfair call or a wrong one might have significant consequences [sending a team to relegation, having a manager sacked, etc.], I understand that we must try to make the final result as fair as possible, and that’s where I think that a proper use of the VAR can be really helpful.”
The Manchester United midfielder continued: “Technology can help football to be more fair, especially nowadays when it seems that the result is the only thing that matters [we could write a whole book on this subject].
“I believe, though, that such technology should be restricted to a few particular actions that are crucial in the game [in order to avoid too many interruptions], and especially that the final decision should take less time and be more clear than last Saturday’s.”
