The protocol makes it clear that only the referee can make any decision in relation to an incident that is being reviewed. Such as, for instance, whether a challenge was a foul or not.
So the basic principle is that the VAR can only offer information to help in the decision, they are not authorized to decide whether a foul has actually taken place.
The protocol also states that an OFR is "appropriate" for all subjective decisions (i.e. it should take place).
It further says the only time an OFR is not usually appropriate is when it involves:
Since this was not a factual decision but a referee judgement call, an OFR was the appropriate course of action
What I've been suggesting is that VAR should not have recommended a review. It should have been a check only, because the 'no penalty' decision was not a clear and obvious error due to the Russo foul immediately prior that should have been picked up in the check. There is nothing in the 'Check' part of the protocol that says a VAR can't evaluate other fouls in the APP when deciding whether to recommend a review. The VAR can look at anything during the check that helps them determine if there's a C&O error.
The way I thought it was supposed to work is that we only interrupt play for reviews when the decision that has been made, 'no penalty', is clearly and obviously wrong. If the protocol does not work like that in a case like this then yes it should be changed. There is no point sending referees to monitors when they are unlikely to be changing their decision.That would be completely contrary to the protocol. The protocol is that they look at the APP only if there is a C&O miss of a PK. So that is the first thing the R needs to review in the OFR because it is a judgment decision. And then the foul in the APP is also a judgment decision, which again calls for the R to review. You can dislike the protocol and want it changed, but this was handled 100% correctly from a protocol perspective. The
VAR is absolutely not supposed to consider a potential foul in the APP in deciding whether to send the possible PK down to the R for an OFR.
The way I thought it was supposed to work is that we only interrupt play for reviews when the decision that has been made, 'no penalty', is clearly and obviously wrong. If the protocol does not work like that in a case like this then yes it should be changed. There is no point sending referees to monitors when they are unlikely to be changing their decision.