Leicester City setback as Premier League meeting absence revealed after controversy.
Leicester City boss Steve Cooper has reportedly been reprimanded over his comments on a VAR decision at Crystal Palace – but the elite refs’ chief will not be on hand to answer questions when Premier League clubs meet in London on Thursday.
Leicester City have been denied the opportunity to take Howard Webb to task over the standard of Premier League refereeing after being told the head of elite match officials will miss a key meeting in London on Thursday.
Webb had been expected to provide a refereeing update at the first Premier League shareholders’ meeting of the new season, where Leicester City officials will be present, but it has since been confirmed he will not appear.
A number of top-flight clubs – including the Foxes and near rivals Nottingham Forest – are unhappy at what they claim are errors by officials in the early weeks of the season. It is understood they had intended to grill Webb over refereeing standards at the meeting.
Leicester boss Steve Cooper attributed “an awful human error” for Crystal Palace striker Jean-Philippe Mateta being ruled onside when scoring against the Foxes at Selhurst Park on September 14. The game eventually ended 2-2 and City are still seeking their first win of the season.
Cooper was so aggrieved by the goal that club officials held a meeting with the Premier League for clarification. The City boss has since been reprimanded by the FA for claiming “false images” were used by VAR to award Mateta’s goal.
Forest were at the centre of several controversies surrounding VAR last season, the most serious coming in their defeat at Everton when they questioned the integrity of VAR official Stuart Attwell and were on the receiving end of misconduct charges.
Their latest run-in with officials came during Sunday’s 2-2 draw at Brighton when head coach Nuno Espirito Santo was shown a red card following Morgan Gibbs-White’s second yellow card offence. Brighton boss Fabian Hurzeler was also shown a red card, and all three have now been charged by the FA with improper conduct.
Arguably the highest-profile refereeing incidents came in Sunday’s 2-2 draw between Manchester City and Arsenal at the Etihad. City claimed referee Michael Oliver made a mistake in the lead-up to Arsenal’s equaliser, while the Gunners were enraged by the red card handed out to Leandro Trossard.
However, it now appears that Webb, the chief refereeing officer for PGMOL (the Professional Game Match Officials Ltd) will not be at the meeting. Instead, Tony Scholes, the Premier League’s chief football officer, is expected to brief clubs.
According to the Times, former Stoke City chief executive Scholes is also a PGMOL board member. They add: “Scholes can expect questions about refereeing, as well as the timetable for the introduction of the semi-automated offside system, which is due this autumn.”
It is understood that Webb does not attend every Premier League shareholders’ meeting. He has yet to address the latest Leicester incident directly, although he did praise the VAR process that allowed Wout Faes’ goal to stand in City’s 2-1 defeat at Fulham last month.
The PGMOL maintains that most of the disputed decisions were called correctly by officials, while also reminding clubs that referees’ performances are continually scrutinised by an independent panel to ensure greater accountability.
