Town will head to Trotters later this month
Luton manager Rob Edwards is perplexed as to why VAR will not be used in the Hatters’ FA Cup third round replay against Bolton Wanderers later this month.
The technology was available at Kenilworth Road yesterday, but it didn’t help Town get the result they wanted when, in the closing stages, Trotters defender Will Forrester brought down Alfie Doughty inside the area, with officials at Stockley Park somehow deciding that the incident wasn’t a foul, as the scores remained goalless, a decision Edwards felt was ‘a mistake’. Now, when the two sides do it all again in about 10 days at the Toughsheet Stadium, it will not be available to the designated referee, because it can only be used in the Premier League stadiums due to licensing rules.
When asked about it in his post-match press conference, Edwards replied, “It is unusual, and I don’t know what to say about it. We have it here today, and although it may make the actual game between the two teams more fair, other teams will suffer as a result of not having it, which I find bizarre.
Meanwhile, Trotters manager Ian Evatt, a former Blackpool teammate of Edwards’, went so far as to say that, with VAR not going away anytime soon, it should be implemented in all four tiers of English football. He continued, “I’d like to see it implemented consistently. The Premier League is not more significant than the Championship, League One, or League Two, therefore there should be some level of consistency, whether we all have it or not.
“For example, we won’t have it on the replay, but in the first game, the big decision was made by VAR. What happens in the replay if we receive a penalty that was not called and Rob begs for VAR? So there must be a level of consistency that applies to everyone. I could go on a long rant about this because I’ve been hammering the drum for aeons. It should be consistent across all levels and in every tournament if it’s being used in one.”
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