VAR set a new record in Serie A with five minutes and 20 seconds to check Tammy Abraham’s offside in the build-up to a Roma penalty against Torino.
There were no arguments when Alessandro Buongiorno brought down Stephan El Shaarawy with a mistimed tackle in the box at the Stadio Olimpico.
However, as Abraham stepped up to take the penalty, he was left standing there for over five minutes.
The Video Assistant Referee was checking for a potential offside in the build-up and it took an astonishingly long time to come to the conclusion that Abraham’s heel was jutting out from the computer-drawn lines.
During the wait, England international Abraham resorted to juggling with the ball just as a warm-up exercise to keep himself in the game.
Roma coach Jose Mourinho was increasingly frustrated on the touchline, asking what was taking so long.
The ‘clear and obvious error’ issue does not apply to offside rulings, because they are objective, so there is only one correct interpretation.
5 mins 20 seconds on this VAR call and a heel offside #RomaTorino #AsRoma pic.twitter.com/1cPRrDLuyf
— Scot Munroe (@scot_munroe) November 28, 2021
This is wrong. They were looking for a way not to award a penalty. This armpit/ heel offside was not adopted in Serie A, why now?
An absolute joke of a decision. Ive never seen the like before, as Joe said they literally spent 5 minutes looking for a reason to not give it. I don’t see how a trailing leg can be offside.
I don’t understand. How is he involved in play here? He doesn’t look to be receiving the ball or involved at all?
Stupid refrees!