Mamelodi Sundowns co-head coach Manqoba Mngqithi has said there are still a few teething issues involving the usage of VAR in the CAF Champions League.
Mngqithi was addressing the media ahead of Saturday’s second leg quarter-final against Petro de Luanda, where Masandawana will be looking to overturn a 2-1 scoreline from the first leg.
Referring back to the first leg in Angola, Mngqithi said there were moments where he felt the VAR wasn’t used correctly, but says he won’t use it as an excuse.
“Ja, it’s a little bit of a challenge man, this thing of VAR but it is something that we have to adapt to,” Mngqithi said in the pre-match press conference.
“Because we have seen in the Euros, in the UEFA Champions League, in the EPL, this VAR whenever there is something that is a little bit dubious, you expect the referee to go to that screen and verify and make sure that it’s exactly what he thinks it is.
“But now in Africa it’s like they choose what they want to go and check on the screen. Because the foul on Thapelo (Morena) in the first five minutes of the game, honestly speaking, the last defender is the one that pulled him. And you would expect that that defender gets a red card.
“But if the referee is not sure whether he was the last defender or not, then you would have to go and check in the screen whether was it the last defender or not, is it a professional foul, then act on that. But if a referee does not even want to go and check this thing, as if he is 100% sure that the way he saw it is the right way, it’s not proper.
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“And going into the goal that Neo scored second half, the referee was less than two metres away from the incident. And even the camera angle of the VAR is impeded by the position of the referee, they can’t show exactly the tackle by Mothobi, but the referee who was closest and deemed it necessary to continue with the game, because he was closest, it’s not like a situation where you would say, the referee could not see what had happened, the referee was in the best possible angle, even better than the camera angle to be able to make a call, and he made a call to continue up until maybe three or four combinations after that, and we scored a fairly good goal, the equalizer, then suddenly he goes back to the VAR.
“So it’s a little bit of an issue, maybe we’ve got our own teething problems with the VAR. But we don’t want to be making excuses. Because we are aware, it can help in some instances.
“And in some instances, maybe they also make a mistake, even when they’ve gone to the screen, the referee will still come back with a very wrong decision, and we’ve seen this in many instances. So the human error is still going to be there even when VAR is being used.”
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