'Calamitous' - Leeds United CEO Angus Kinnear on demand for VAR to be fundamentally evolved or scrapped

LEEDS United chief executive Angus Kinnear believes VAR will soon be fundamentally evolved or scrapped after another calamitous weekend at Stockley Park.
'CALAMITOUS' CALL: Leeds United captain Liam Cooper is sent off in last weekend's 2-1 victory at Manchester City. Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images.'CALAMITOUS' CALL: Leeds United captain Liam Cooper is sent off in last weekend's 2-1 victory at Manchester City. Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images.
'CALAMITOUS' CALL: Leeds United captain Liam Cooper is sent off in last weekend's 2-1 victory at Manchester City. Photo by Michael Regan/Getty Images.

Whites chief executive Kinnear took a fresh swipe at the game's Video Assistant Referee system in his programme notes ahead of Monday night's Premier League clash against Liverpool at Elland Road.

Kinnear's notes were penned before the football world was rocked by the news that six of United's Premier League rivals were joining a new breakaway Super League as part of a founding European dozen.

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But Kinnear still had plenty of ammunition for his programme notes following VAR's decisive role in Whites captain Liam Cooper s dismissal in last weekend's 2-1 victory at Manchester City.

Cooper was initially booked by referee Andre Marriner following a challenge on City's Gabriel Jesus in first-half stoppage time from which Cooper won the ball but caught Jesus on the knee with a high follow-through.

Video Assistant Referee David Coote then advised Marriner to check the incident on his monitor and Marriner returned to change the yellow card to a straight red which landed Cooper a three-match ban.

Kinnear said: "The only disappointing element of our trip to the Etihad was that VAR once again stole some of the headlines in what was a calamitous weekend for Stockley Park.

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"In a sport that should be about excitement and spontaneous celebration, we saw perfectly good goals disallowed for West Bromwich Albion and Manchester United, while a technology that was promised to deliver consistency used multiple slow motion replays to turn a yellow card into a red card at the Etihad, while a more dangerous ball winning challenge was not even deemed to be a foul at Turf Moor.

"I believe it will only take the return of supporters to stadia to demand that this blight is either fundamentally evolved or removed, to prevent us from sacrificing the heart of football for a single digit percentage improvement in decision making accuracy and no perceptible improvement in consistency."

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