Sam Allardyce wants rid of VAR in the FA Cup, believing the implementation is unfair.
While VAR is standard in the Premier League, it continues to attract criticism, both for the length of time that some reviews take to carry out, and also because it still leads to some questionable results in the eyes of many pundits, fans, players and managers.
VAR is now part of the FA Cup, and speaking to William Hill, Allardyce thinks it is wrong to have it in some matches but not in others.
“I think the FA have been completely out of order allowing VAR anywhere in the FA Cup,” said the former England manager. “If not everyone has it, nobody should use it. It should be left to referee on the day – I think we’d all be comfortable with that.
“It’s far easier to say we’re not using VAR in the FA Cup rather than saying, ‘this team has got VAR so we should use it’ or ‘this team hasn’t got VAR, so we can’t’.”
With the FA Cup third round recently played and with the remainder of the replays still to come, there could be more controversy on the horizon.
Allardyce also thinks that VAR has led to a spate of diving in the box to get penalties, with reviews being prompted by simulation.
He explained: “What has been most disturbing to watch this season is that we’re encouraging faking fouls to get penalties. Every touch [in the box] now, players are just going down knowing it’ll go to VAR and after a slow-motion replay they’ll be awarded a penalty.
“Most of the touches are so slight and players are exaggerating them by going down.”