Chelsea manager cries about VAR, ignores red card escape after Arsenal’s 3-1 win | OneFootball

Chelsea complaints over disallowed goal ignore soft free-kick and missed red card for horrific ‘challenge’.

Photo by Justin Setterfield/Getty Images

If you pick up today’s papers, most of the coverage of Arsenal’s 3-1 win over Chelsea in the first leg of the Champions League quarter final at the Emirates focuses on Chelsea manager Sonia Bompastor complaining about the VAR call that ruled out her side’s first goal for a very slight touch on an Arsenal defender.

There is no doubt that the decision to rule Veerle Buurman’s goal, scored with a header after a free-kick and ruled out on the pitch by the referee before VAR backed up that decision, was a poor one.

The Times, 25 March 2026

The touch was minimal and Laia Codina did her best to buy the foul. I accept that.

What has not been mentioned in the reports that have followed is that it should not have been a free-kick in the first place. The foul was given when a Chelsea player simply sat down on the pitch after feeling even less contact than Codina had felt from Buurman.

“It’s always more difficult to complain about the referees when you lose the game, but it’s not good enough,” Bompastor said.

Photo by Alex Pantling/Getty Images

“When you are playing the quarter-final of the Champions League you need to respect the women’s game more. You need to respect the players because they work hard every week to put a good performance on the pitch.

“The first goal is a goal. I don’t see with the VAR how you cannot allow that goal. It’s always the same. When you go to them and you ask them to check and to make sure they make the right decision, they just always say ‘Yeah, we are checking’ but they make the wrong decision and nothing changes.

“When a human makes a mistake, I think you can understand a little bit more, but when there is the VAR, it’s really difficult.”

There has also been little-to-no mention of the blatant red card Chelsea should have received when they had a second goal ruled out towards the end of the game.

As the ball floated towards Anneke Borbe in the Arsenal goal, Kadeisha Buchanan stretched out her leg to reach it, then straightened that leg and drove her studs into the chest of the Arsenal keeper.

Image via Arsenal.com highlights video

It was an horrific challenge that should have seen Buchanan sent off and handed a three-game ban, which would have ruled her out of the return leg at Stamford Bridge next week.

The red card did not come, nor did any analysis in the papers of what Buchanan had done, the danger she had put an opponent in or how Chelsea benefited from the fact the referee, and VAR, chose to leave her on the pitch without so much as a caution, thus avoidng a ban.

Bompastor has done well in one sense, she has managed to drag the conversation away from how her side were wasteful in front of goal and how Arsenal, with three brilliant goals, the pick of them Chloe Kelly’s effort from about 25 yards, made a major statement against the outgoing WSL champions.

Photo by Justin Setterfield/Getty Images

“We deserve the best referees, so bring the best. If it has to be men coming from the men’s game or if it is the best women from the women’s game, we need to make these decisions because it’s really frustrating,” Bonpastor continued.

“We need to have the VAR in the women’s game but the right people to check the situations and be able to make the right decisions.”

Yes, Sonia, we do indeed, and if that had been in place, you would be going into the second leg with Buchanan suspended.