Yahoo News 'We will be thanking Nottingham Forest for their VAR stance' - our writers debate that tweet
Nottingham Forest's anger at VAR manifested itself in a post match statement on social media after the defeat to Everton that sent shockwaves through the world of football.
It also divided opinions with a range of emotions being levelled towards the club, from anger and mockery but also plenty of support for the Premier League team.
Ex-ref and now Reds special advisor Mark Clattenburg may also face some added heat after coming out to brand the three non-penalty decisions as “a joke” and “a hat-trick of howlers” after Forest were three times denied in huge decisions during the 2-0 defeat at Goodison Park. The Football Association has now opened an investigation into Forest’s social media statement.
With the debate in full flow, we have assembled our team to bring you our thoughts on the situation and whether the club were correct to make their feelings known so publicly.
READ MORE: ‘Joke’ - Mark Clattenburg breaks silence on Forest statement
READ MORE: Every word Nuno said on Nottingham Forest's angry statement
Football Editor for the Nottingham Post, Steve Wollaston.
The whole Mark Clattenburg appointment at Forest was always a strange one and it seems the club are perhaps rightly obsessed with the instability of VAR. When so much money is at stake, it seems crazy that the game is relying on a clearly flawed system to make such key calls.
Human error was supposed to be eliminated from the process of decision making, yet it seems human error is more to blame that it ever was before VAR. Does anyone actually not wish the game could go back to how it was before?
In saying all that, it still doesn't feel like the manner of Forest's tweets was particularly helpful to their cause. Of course, they have a point, and Reds fans will support their club for dropping their guard and going nuclear on social media.
In truth, clubs need to be pushing through the right kind of protests and complaints as a unified process. The power of many is much more impactful than knee-jerk reactions when a fanbase or club is outraged. I have a sniff of admiration for Forest for throwing caution to the wind and hitting that send button with such venom, but I think clubs need to be better than that, as a rule.
Garibaldi Red podcast host Max Hayes.
A professional football club, the fans' football club, our football club is tweeting after a game out of pure emotion, which seems as if it must have come from the Marinakis family it is that angry.
It puts Forest in such a serious situation now with the FA launching an investigation, and it invites more pressure onto the football club at a time when they have broken PSR rules and are fighting for their lives at the bottom of the Premier League. To put a tweet out like that, in my opinion, is absolutely wrong.
It's a professional football club, it's Nottingham Forest. We are not a Sunday League team. It is a club that myself and all the other fans invest plenty of time and money into. It was another poor performance, and of course that can be blamed to an extent of refereeing decisions, but Forest lost the game by not taking their chances, not by the vagaries of VAR
Content editor, Keith Wales
There will come a time, and probably in the not too distant future, when we are thanking Nottingham Forest for their forthright condemnation of VAR. Maybe not in the way in which it was done, and certainly not by questioning the integrity of a match official.
However, for too long now, PGMOL and the Premier League have overseen a farce of a system that while supposed to make officiating easier has turned it into a Mickey Mouse affair where it is only a matter of time before the next calamity comes along.
Yes, Forest were hard done by at Everton and have been on the wrong end of some other ridiculous calls this season. So too Wolves (many times) and Liverpool.
It is all very well for the likes of Gary Neville to get on his high horse and the FA to initiate investigations against the club, but the fact remains that VAR is proving to be a huge failure while those who oversee it are, on the face of it, doing little to improve the system.
Surely, that time has come. Tweaks to speed up the judging of off-side calls, as made recently, are not enough. Especially when a common-sense approach, like ruling that a player’s foot is the key factor in making a call, not an errant finger, knee or shoulder, are ignored. Ask fans what they thing of VAR and I am betting Howard Webb at PGMOL and the Premier League would get some pretty forthright answers, and not just from incensed Forest fans.
So while not in favour of how the club have gone about highlighting VAR’s failings, they do deserve grudging thanks for putting it front and centre of a contentious debate. The Premier League have proved with their tortuous deliberations and rule changes over player spending that they themselves run the risk of undermining the integrity of the supposed greatest league in the world. Your can now add a dodgy VAR system to that threat.
Our Forest correspondent, Sarah Clapson
The tweet from the club’s official account immediately after Sunday’s 2-0 defeat at Everton seemed to divide opinion among fans. Some questioned whether the Reds’ fury was being expressed in the best way, but few would disagree with the basic sentiment.
Even by the standards of officiating Forest have been on the end of this season, to have three big decisions go against them in just one game was quite something. That the incidents only add to an already lengthy list of controversial calls explains why the club were particularly incensed on this occasion.
The Reds are certainly not alone in their grievances over refereeing and VAR. In amongst the replies to their tweet were some from supporters of other clubs applauding the move."
Content editor, Brian Dick
Forest’s Premier League status, so hard-won, so long in coming, is precious to everyone at the City Ground. So precious they were found to have breached profitability and sustainability rules after undertaking a breathless recruitment drive with the sole aim of retaining it.
So precious that they have appealed against that initial four-point deduction. So precious that they have belatedly recruited a set-piece coach to make them more sturdy at one end, incisive at the other. So precious that they have even engaged the services of Mark Clattenburg as referee analyst.
It seems the retired referee’s brief is not only to advise players and coaches of relevant law interpretations but to press the club’s agenda both in the relevant meetings and in the wider media.
The whole thing has become a bit of a circus, one that took a turn for the unseemly when the club cast aspersions on the integrity of the VAR official in yesterday’s 2-0 defeat to Everton. There’s anger and there’s seeing ghosts, there’s indignation and there’s flailing around looking for people to blame.
Nuno Espirito Santo didn’t wholeheartedly endorse the implications about "Luton fan" Stuart Attwell’s objectivity in front of a VAR monitor at Stockley Park, but he did echo the wider sentiment that his team is being unfairly treated. He said: "We are always being punished and it’s difficult to control, especially for the players. They felt they work hard and are not given what they deserve, especially from the referees.”
I never wanted VAR in the first place and would happily put that particular technological genie back in its bottle, I don’t think the PSRs are fit for purpose – and neither is what’s coming down the road to replace them.
However, I can’t help but feel Forest are putting the responsibility for their hard-won, long-awaited Premier League status in other people’s hands. By railing at the Premier League and the PGMOL they are providing excuses for their players.
At Goodison Park, Nuno admitted all the outside noise is affecting his squad, yet still played his part in perpetuating it. No-one else is going to keep Nottingham Forest in the Premier League, not Clattenburg, not Howard Webb, not any mysterious independent commission. Nuno can, Morgan Gibbs-White can, Matz Sels can, their porous midfield can – yet all were founding wanting at key moments on Sunday.
There’s no conspiracy that allowed Everton to score twice from long-distance, just rank bad defending, and the more Nuno and Forest bleat about things not being fair, the more they create a narrative that their on-field underperformance is somehow somebody else’s fault. So come on Forest, dig in, stay up and then wail like a banshee at whomever you like because that Premier League status is so, so precious.
How the fans reacted
While fans of Forest and across the country have labelled it “embarrassing”, there has been some support for the club, with their stance praised for calling out poor decisions and trying to raise officiating standards. Here are some responses on X, formerly Twitter.
@foxy219: “No one likes us, we know that. But quit the moaning. Concentrate on getting results rather than relying on getting a decision that we haven’t been given all season.”
@rebekkarnold: “People calling this embarrassing clearly don’t understand the impact poor officiating can have on a club’s outcome, especially if they get relegated from the Premier League. Everyone is sick of it.”
@MikeWood77: “It’s not pathetic at all. It’s completely justified. Three stonewall penalty decisions denied. Forest have been awarded one penalty all season.”
@BigBearKentlaar: “Some people are calling this embarrassing, but why? Thousands of us complain about a decision in every single Premier League game. PGMOL are aware of how strong social media voices can be, and now a club have used it to pretty much call them out for their mistakes. It’s about time it happened and I hope Forest get at least a clear message from the FA/PGMOL.”
@MattDaviesAdams: “Pathetically embarrassing was today’s performance. A clown show masquerading as a football club.”
@Forest_Review: “Never been one to jump on an officials' back, but this is spot on from the club, especially having seen the decisions back.”
@NFFC_EPL: “YES! Don’t stand for it. Would they have a Liverpool fan do VAR for a City game in a title run in? No.”
@afcjxmes: “As embarrassing as this seems I hope fans can get behind the overall message. The officiating in the ‘biggest league in the world’ isn’t held to high enough standards. Something needs to change.”
@BankzyNFFC: “A lot of uproar about this, but we’ve been done over by officials all season. We’ve filed complaints multiple times and nothing changes. The club has every right to be livid.”
@Shamsdale: “I’m all for this, to be honest. Clubs need to wake up and realise they don’t have to tolerate constant refereeing incompetence. With an independent regulator looming over the financial side of the game already, this is the time to apply pressure on the PGMOL.”
