The Ref Stop

Bolton vs Forest Green

Mooseybaby

Mooseybaby

Retired big bad baldy in all black!
Bolton Red Card

Slam dunk red card for violent conduct with Bolton's Elias Kachunga punching a Forest Green player in the stomach, however after consultation with his AR, the referee sends off Dion Charles instead. Both players protest, but the officials were having none of it.

Is this something VAR would correct?
 
The Ref Stop
Even at this level, mistaken identity like that will be corrected before any ban is applied. It's one of the 4 categories VAR can get involved with, although probably the least-used!
 
Was at this game as a Bolton fan. Honestly, great call by the linesman to spot the foul… but the aftermath was an absolute shambles. I don’t think the referee had even spotted the punch, so this one is pretty much all on the linesman.

In terms of the actual game, it all went downhill from there. The officials either missed or ignored a number of basic calls for both sides. It felt like the ref “lost his head” in the second half, as you might say a team would do when they’re losing heavily. Both linesmen were clearly reluctant to make any more calls after this incident.

Ian Evatt, the Bolton manager, called for the introduction of VAR in his post-match interview, and it probably is a discussion that will be had in the coming years. I think the EFL would probably benefit more from VAR than the EPL does, but to actually implement it would be a huge task and would require so much training and new infrastructure.
 
It was a strange one in that player reaction suggested that nothing had happened. Even the player punched didn't react in anyway.

Remember my get out of jail used once, when you know you need to sanction a player but don't know who, very authoritatively, "Yes please over here" at a group of players & hope the guilty party wants to plead their innocence. If this fails call over the captain, to ask them to offer up the guilty party!
 
DJIC said:
It was a strange one in that player reaction suggested that nothing had happened. Even the player punched didn't react in anyway.

Remember my get out of jail used once, when you know you need to sanction a player but don't know who, very authoritatively, "Yes please over here" at a group of players & hope the guilty party wants to plead their innocence. If this fails call over the captain, to ask them to offer up the guilty party!
Click to expand...
People think - What?

But it does work. The culprit normally offers themselves up so a fellow teammate doesn't take the penalty.
 
Lesson for all assistant referees here: if you are going to alert the referee to an incident that will lead to a red card or a penalty you have to be 100% certain who the offender is before you raise the flag or speak over comms. If you even have 1% of doubt who the offender was stay out of it. The AR here probably wouldn't have had any blame apportioned if he hadn't signalled, in signalling and getting the wrong player he is absolutely getting the blame.

I had it in an FA Cup game where AR1 flagged for a penalty for VC when the play was in the other half. He told me it was a penalty but couldn't give me the offender. We winged it by saying it was for adopting an aggressive attitude rather than VC, and luckily a couple of defenders gobbed off sufficiently to let me flash a couple of yellows so no one was the wiser. But it was a mess and we learnt a very important lesson that day.
 
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