VAR trouble again in Swiss football. In the match between Luzern and GC (2:0), a penalty is awarded after viewing the video images. As TV pictures show, a wrong decision. Referee boss Wermelinger takes a stand.
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- In the match between Luzern and GC, the VAR makes a clear mistake.
- Referee boss Daniel Wermelinger comments to blue Sport: "We have clearly come to the conclusion that it was a wrong decision."
- Wermelinger explains that he himself is most annoyed about the mistake: "An airbag went up that shouldn't have."
The scene from the 57th minute in the Swissporarena heated tempers. Lucerne's Kevin Spadanuda takes a shot in the penalty area, but GC defender Dirk Abels deflects his shot next to the goal. The VAR intervenes - and asks referee Johannes von Mandach to monitor.
Luca Cibelli in the VAR cellar in Volketswill claims to have seen a handball. "I didn't see anything on the pitch, and I described that to the VAR accordingly. (...) I asked whether the ball was really clearly on the hand," von Mandach told blue Sport after the game.
In the end, Cibelli told him that he could see a handball in his pictures. "So I trusted that," says von Mandach and reveals that he couldn't recognize a handball himself. In the end, he did indeed decide to award a penalty, Luzern scored to make it 2:0 and ultimately won the game with this result.
Obviously, however, the ball was not actually on Abel's hand or arm. How can such a hair-raising mistake happen? Head referee Daniel Wermelinger gives his explanation.
Daniel Wermelinger, how do you assess the scene, is it a wrong decision?
Daniel Wermelinger: We have come to the clear conclusion that it was a wrong decision. A wrong decision that should not happen to us in this form. We had a correct decision in the stadium, where the referee judged everything correctly. Unfortunately, the VAR then intervened and called the referee off. But when we look at the pictures again today, we have to say quite clearly: we were wrong.
How could such a situation have been prevented?
First and foremost, we should have simply let the referee's decision stand. But then it happened that the VAR saw this ball from Lucerne, which was played in and he saw that the ball was going into the corner. And then the thing happened that shouldn't happen: you had the feeling it was a handball. But we can't find the handball anywhere in the pictures. What we can see is that the ball was deflected by the GC player's body for a corner.
What do you think of referee von Mandach's statement about the distorted VAR images?
You can definitely say that the images sent from Volketswil to Lucerne were of poor quality. All the more reason why we should have kept our hands off them. There are no pictures that show that the ball is clearly on the hand. So there was no clear and obvious fault. An airbag opened that should not have opened. Of course that annoys us a lot.
How angry are you about the whole situation?
It is of course absolutely annoying that this is happening to us now. We've had a 2024 so far, which I think was very good. The fact that we've now made such a mistake should not happen to us, I'm very sorry, I think we're most annoyed with ourselves. Both the VAR and the referee are extremely annoyed. We've already discussed the case with them and we're obviously not happy that it happened at this level.
Are there any consequences for such a wrong decision?
No, we basically trust our people. Wherever people work, mistakes happen. It's important that we continue to give people confidence. It is important that we now learn from these mistakes, analyze them, see why they happened and then take the necessary measures. These are actually quite simple: we can only intervene from Volketswil if we see clear and obvious mistakes and we really do have clear pictures to back them up.