Two days, one demotion
Matt Donohue and Blake Antrobus will not be working the next round of Premier League fixtures. Pro Ref, the body running professional refereeing in England, pulled both men off the list. They had been on VAR duty for the Manchester derby at Old Trafford on Sunday. The Telegraph reports they stay away from matches at least until the international break is over.
Two days. That is all it took. Pro Ref had already conceded a “judgment error” over the award of Erling Haaland’s winner, and once that admission was public, standing the pair down became the obvious next move.
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The second look that never happened
On the pitch, the goal was ruled out for offside. VAR intervened and overturned the call, judging Haaland to be covered by Patrick Dorgu. The review stopped there. That is the problem.
Pro Ref accepts its video officials failed to properly weigh what Enzo Fernandez was doing. He stood in an offside position. He went for the ball. Either of those on its own invites a trip to the monitor. Nobody made it.
That goal decided everything. Manchester City won 1-0 away, and they did it with ten men for nearly 70 minutes after Phil Foden was sent off. A derby taken a man short, on a goal the officials themselves now admit they got wrong. United’s fury writes itself.
A row with nowhere to go
Wayne Rooney went after VAR publicly. The club went after the officials. There will be no replay, and Pro Ref never hinted at one. Dropping Donohue and Antrobus is the whole of its answer.
The timing suits English refereeing rather well. Two weeks with no league football means two weeks with no fresh flashpoint. Quite how the next offside-position interference gets handled, nobody can say yet. That is precisely the call they fluffed.
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