‘Just cancel VAR’: Adelaide United chairman Greg Griffin has written to A-League leaders seeking answers after ‘farce’

ADELAIDE United chairman Greg Griffin has written to Football Federation Australia’s leaders asking for the video assistant referee experiment to be cancelled after Saturday night’s controversial 2-2 Reds draw with Central Coast at Hindmarsh.

Marco Kurz coach of Adelaide United gets a yellow card from referee Shaun Evans during the round 20 A-League match between Adelaide United and the Central Coast Mariners at Coopers Stadium. Picture: Mark Brake/Getty Images

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ADELAIDE United chairman Greg Griffin has written to Football Federation Australia’s leaders asking for the video assistant referee experiment to be cancelled after Saturday night’s controversial 2-2 Reds draw with Central Coast at Hindmarsh.

The Advertiser has seen an email Griffin addressed to FFA chief executive David Gallop and head of the A-League Greg O’Rourke.

“Just cancel the VAR system,’’ Griffin told FFA.

“It is used so badly that all it does is give an opportunity for the public to lose what small degree of confidence and interest it has left in your capacity to run the A-League to fester. “The only slight positive from the debacle that was played out was that at least for their first time CCM (Mariners) was not on the receiving end of third rate refereeing decisions.

“No fair-minded person could begrudge CCM some gifts at last from the failure to use the VAR to identify blatant errors by the referee which were in their own way as bad as his errors against us in the first Victory game.”

Ersan Gulum of United argues with the referee about the red card for this tackle on Trent Buhagiar of the Mariners during the Round 20 A-League match between Adelaide United and the Central Coast Mariners at Coopers Stadium. Picture: AAP Image/James Eslby

Griffin also questioned why Saturday night’s referee Shaun Evans wasn’t sanctioned after round three on October 20 in a 2-2 draw with Melbourne Victory at Adelaide Oval.

The most controversial moments during that clash were two off the ball tackles from Victory’s Rhys Williams.

Griffin stated in the email the fourth official for the clash, SA-based Daniel Elder, however, was suspended after that match but it wasn’t made public.

FFA preferred not to respond to the claims.

Griffin also hoped FFA’s director of referee Ben Wilson issues Adelaide an apology.

“I do hope that AUFC (Adelaide) gets another letter of apology from Ben (Wilson),’’ he said.

“We are wall papering the lunch room at Playford (Adelaide’s training base) and these will save us having to purchase paper.

“AUFC can only wonder where it would be on the ladder if it had throughout this season not been subjected to poor refereeing performances and inconsistent usage of the VAR technology to address those obvious errors that other clubs have benefited from.

“I trust that action will be taken against those responsible for last night’s farce and that this time the result of that inquiry not be withheld from the clubs and the public as occurred after our Victory game.”

Evans was also at the centre of another controversy at Hindmarsh in 2016 after a crunching Jack Clisby tackle put former Red Sergio Cirio out of action for about 10 weeks before Brendan Santalab only escaped with a caution after another ex Red James Holland said he felt “lucky” his leg wasn’t broken in a clash with Western Sydney.

Originally published as ‘Just cancel VAR’: Adelaide United chairman Greg Griffin has written to A-League leaders seeking answers after ‘farce’