VAR can't intervene here, Gomes on Silva's penalty in Porto v Benfica | OneFootball

Duarte Gomes explained this Friday why the VAR could not intervene in the incident between António Silva and Deniz Gul in the penalty area of the home team, in the final moments of the classic match between FC Porto and Benfica, related to the 8th round of the Primeira Liga.

On the program ‘Livre Arbítrio’ on Canal 11, the technical director of refereeing for the Portuguese Football Federation praised the decision of the video referee, understanding that it was not a “clear and obvious” situation.

“Some say this incident is a penalty because the grabbing might be sufficient. The referees and the VAR have very clear guidelines from us, which we have communicated to the clubs and the press. The instructions are to penalize clear and obvious infractions. These guidelines are for everyone. Here, the VAR can never intervene because it is not absolutely evident that the referee made a mistake on the field. When there is no evidence, we do not want an intervention. Intervention is like a parachute, it only opens when it is obvious, and this is not that incident,” he began to explain before analyzing the play.

“Indeed, there is a shirt pull, there is imbalance, disturbance, but in the marking movement. It is very common to use hands almost at the limit of the law. In this specific case, a gray area, if you put 10 people in a room, five or six will say different things. Even among reasonable people, it is an incident that generates doubts, and therefore we do not want punishment,” he analyzed.

The technical director also recalled that “football does not want fouls and minor fouls” and that the guideline is to referee “in the English style, to let the game flow.”

“In this type of incident, to be clear, when in doubt, it is not to penalize,” he concluded.

Gomes also justified the decision to bring the incident to public debate, given the various opinions on whether a penalty should have been awarded or not. “We had two possibilities: not to bring this incident up and not to comment on it, or to address the incident and give our opinion. The incident is really very gray, and there are small factors that could justify the foul. If the referee had awarded a penalty in this incident, we also would not want intervention [from the VAR] because it was not clear that he had made a mistake. Because they are ambiguous, they fall into the non-penalization category. This also applies to pushes, charges,… we want the fluid game to prevail and not the infraction. Knowing that we will often make mistakes, but consistency on the field and the timing of the VAR intervention line are the biggest challenges in world refereeing,” he explained.

The classic of the 8th round between FC Porto and Benfica ended goalless at the Dragão.

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