Standard lost 0-1 to Charleroi. At Sclessin, Standard’s ground in Liège. An empty Sclessin, the press says. I will say no more on that point.
In the final minutes, Salieu Drammeh went down in the Charleroi box after contact with a defender. On the footage, the defender seems to stand on his foot. The referee saw nothing worth a penalty. Neither did the VAR. Nobody went to look at the pitchside monitor.
To sum up. Cameras were installed, screens, a room, people in the room. All of it in order to see. And nobody looked.
In 1980, the referee didn’t see, and that was life. We went home. We talked about it at the chip shop. On Monday we re-read the paper, and the foot was still crushed, and the score still the same. Today, the referee doesn’t see either. But he has a machine that doesn’t see with him. VAR isn’t progress, it’s a confession.
I read Peter Vandenbempt’s comments in Voetbalkrant. “I can’t get my head round the VAR not at least calling the referee to the screen,” he said. I can. We bought a television. We don’t switch it on. It’s very Belgian, incidentally.
He added that the referee got it wrong twice, that Charleroi were the deserved winners and that it wasn’t a good game from Standard. There is a man who says three things and believes all of them. I’m not criticising. I’m comparing.
Jonathan Lardot, the head of Belgian refereeing, who usually speaks on Mondays on DAZN, spoke straight away. He found the lack of a penalty “very surprising”. He didn’t wait for Monday. Even Monday isn’t what it was.
Marcel, VAR has never blown for us. Tonight, ‘us’ was Standard. I’m weighing my words.
I’ve put my weekly away. It comes out on Thursday. The foot will still be on the foot. Well. It’s the times.
It’s true, we checked: Voetbalkrant.
