Fluminense president calls for consistent refereeing, slams VAR use | OneFootball

The president of Fluminense, Mário Bittencourt, used his official Instagram profile to criticize the refereeing after the defeat to Mirassol last Wednesday night, by 2 to 1, in the Brazilian Championship. The official cited the lack of consistency among refereeing professionals and suggested less intervention from VAR.

“Brazilian refereeing needs to stop and refresh itself. It is not possible that, round after round, the errors repeat themselves in an absurd way. I speak not only of Fluminense's games but of all the mistakes committed every Wednesday and Sunday against all clubs. The lack of consistency is alarming. Each referee whistles in their own way, and VAR interferes with on-field decisions all the time. We need standardization of criteria and less interference from VAR in interpretative plays defined by the field referee. The problem with Brazilian refereeing is the lack of criteria and varied interpretation in each game. The trivialization of VAR is ruining Brazilian football,” wrote Bittencourt.

The president complained about the disallowed goal by Lucho Costa, at 31 minutes of the first half. In the play in question, VAR saw a foul by Canobbio at the start of the move and annulled the goal. The field referee, Rodrigo José Pereira de Lima, did not signal the irregularity at the time. The president compared the incident with the controversial penalty not awarded to São Paulo in the classic against Palmeiras last Sunday.

“See that VAR did not see a foul in the São Paulo x Palmeiras play inside the area, but saw a foul by Cannobio in the play where the Mirassol player steps on the ball and falls to the ground,” he pointed out.

“With every goal scored in Brazilian football, VAR, armed with a ‘magnifying glass,’ tries to find an infraction to annul the ultimate moment of football, which is the ball in the net. The fan can no longer explode with emotion because someone in air conditioning rewinds the play 1 minute back and ‘finds’ a foul that the field referee did not see and that the team that conceded the goal did not even complain about. This is insanity!!” he completed.

The president also recalled a disallowed goal in the draw with Sport, at 2 to 2, and requested the CBF (Brazilian Football Confederation) to initiate a process of changing the refereeing criteria, especially in VAR.

“In the game against Sport, they took away a legitimate goal from us, in an identical way, when the game was tied at 0 x 0, and today they did it again. And there go precious points that will interfere with our final classification,” he said.

“I request the CBF, which in such a short time of the new management has already shown so many advances and great innovations like Financial Fair Play and a new calendar, that we can together, at the end of the year (CBF, Clubs, Referees, and Federations) start a process of changing the criteria of Brazilian refereeing, especially in VAR. Either we do this, or we will continue as the country that least knows how to use VAR in football. It is ugly and shameful,” he concluded.

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This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇧🇷 here.