A-League Grand Final: Video referee is left out of the frame as incorrect call mars showpiece

It takes something pretty drastic to send Sydney FC coach Steve Corica into a meltdown but it can happen, as was the case when Michael Zullo was incorrectly ruled offside in the A-League grand final.

On most days it takes some trying to rouse even a retort from Sydney FC coach Steve Corica, never mind one worthy of a yellow card.

On Sunday, in the biggest game of his first season at the helm, the A-League’s quietest sideline presence was in a ropeable state, storming about and mouthing off at officials and pointing to a big screen beaming a single, pertinent frame.

A frame showing Michael Zullo was marginally onside the moment Alex Brosque played the ball in to the left-back just before Adam Le Fondre tucked it into the net.

A frame that was, significantly, split by a straight yellow line to prove it.

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Sydney FC's Michael Zullo (top) is incorrectly ruled offside in the A-League grand final against Perth Glory.

That decisive intersection, added to the Fox Sports broadcast for the benefit of TV viewers and the 56,371 fans at Optus Stadium, did not exist on the frame viewed by video assistant referee Kris Griffiths-Jones.

Had it been present, Griffiths-Jones may have recommended to referee Shaun Evans that the original offside call be overturned, Matthew Spiranovic would have been credited with a first-half own goal, and Sydney might well have won the title in normal time.

As it turned out, they did it anyway following the fatigue of 120 minutes and then penalties, ensuring this would, after all, be a narrative about Sky Blues continuity and not Perth Glory’s impregnable diligence and Tony Popovic’s first grand-final triumph from four attempts.

Steve Corica reacts to the big screen showing the incorrect call.

Somewhere up high in Perth’s biggest amphitheatre, A-League boss Greg O’Rourke would have had his head in his hands, wondering if he will ever oversee a decider not tainted by a VAR controversy.

This latest episode wasn’t a major technical failure of the nature of last year’s in Newcastle that meant Kosta Barbarouses’ winning goal stood despite the Melbourne Victory forward being offside.

Rather, it highlighted the way in which the man inside the operation room can, at times, have less access to a clear angle or viewpoint than the rest of the world outside.

Steve Corica holds the winner’s trophy aloft for travelling fans in Perth.

Also that the presence of big screens — absent in most other football countries — renders necessary the broadcasting VAR decision-making process, permission for which Football Federation Australia has requested and been denied by FIFA.

Regardless, there is no question as to whether this particular instance qualifies as a clear and obvious error.

The thing about offside rulings is that, unlike more subjective areas such as penalties and handballs, it is black and white. You are either onside or offside.

The grand shame was that it rendered one of Sydney’s strongest passages of play meaningless. But Milos Ninkovic, the fulcrum of that opportunity, would finally get reward for his nuance and grace while the Glory, the benchmark team all season, would face the utter cruelty of a season climax that ultimately defines an entire campaign.