Ex-Premier League referee hits back at Jota after controversial Celtic reveal
Keith Hackett has hit back at Celtic star Jota after he complained VAR is “ruining football”.
Speaking exclusively to Football Insider, the ex-Fifa and Premier League referee admitted VAR has not run smoothly south of the border.
As quoted by the Daily Record on Saturday (2 June), Jota revealed he was not a fan of the technology as football was all about individual errors.
Hackett insisted the current use of VAR in England shows that it does not take human error out of the game.
He told Football Insider‘s Connor Whitley: “He [Jota] says that but he won’t accept VAR.
“Ultimately at the end of the day, it is the referee who takes advice from VAR and then makes the decision.
“Fifa are very adamant, quite rightly, that the referee is the sole decision maker in that sense.
“The way we’ve seen VAR operate in England has been very unsatisfactory, three years of producing error after error. Big human error, sometimes ignoring offences.
“I don’t think in England the Premier League have operated anywhere near the standard that’s expected.
“They are still on this wave ‘Do we do it this week? Do we do it next week?’ instead of getting a consistent approach where there is an understanding between VAR on what is clear and obvious.
“Here we are talking about the human element and saying get these guys in a room and give all these situations a run over and say ‘In this situation, the expectation is this’.
“I don’t think until they have a panel of VAR operators only will we get a degree of improvement that gets us to a point where we are not arguing.
“There will always be conflict in football, you’ll never get rid of it, but I do think VAR and the price we pay for VAR, has not delivered to our expectation.”
In other news, Celtic are expected to sign a Christopher Jullien replacement after a journalist’s update.