The PGMOL have "strongly refuted" claims from former Premier League referee Mike Dean after he confessed to failing to alert Anthony Taylor to Cristian Romero's hair pull on Marc Cucurella last season.
Dean claimed on William Hill’s Up Front with Simon Jordan podcast that he didn't refer referee Taylor to the VAR monitor during Chelsea's dramatic 2-2 draw with Tottenham Hotspur at Stamford Bridge in order to protect his "mate" from receiving further "grief".
Argentine defender Romero wrestled Cucurella down by the hair moments before Harry Kane scored a dramatic stoppage-time equaliser for Spurs. But despite television pictures clearly showing what had happened, Taylor, who did not see the incident, was not advised by Dean to head over to the VAR monitor, with the now-retired referee not wanting to subject Taylor to further scrutiny because the game had already been feisty enough.
“I missed the stupid hair pull at Chelsea versus Tottenham which was pathetic from my point of view,” Dean claimed. “It’s one of them where if I had my time again, what would I do? I’d send Anthony [Taylor] to the screen. I think I knew if I did send him to the screen...he’s cautioned both managers, he’s had a hell of a game, it’s been such a tough game end to end.
"I said to Anthony afterwards: ‘I just didn’t want to send you to the screen after what has gone on in the game’. I didn’t want to send him up because he is a mate as well as a referee and I think I didn’t want to send him up because I didn’t want any more grief than he already had.
"Anthony, he is big and bald and ugly enough to know if he is going to the screen he is going to the screen for a reason. If someone pulls their hair now it’s dead easy. It’s just a brainwave by me, a really bad call by me, and it kind of affected me as Var going forward.”
But in a statement released on social media, PGMOL played down Dean's claims, saying: "VARs undergo extensive training with the focus centred entirely around effectively working with the on-field team of officials to rectify clear and obvious errors.
"When VARs identify a clear and obvious error by the on-field team of match officials, they should intervene and recommend a review by the referee. We strongly refute any suggestion that VARs do not intervene, for whatever reason, when they have identified a clear and obvious error."
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Dean also made some surprisingly open admissions about the pressure he felt to change decisions when he was referred to the monitor by VAR, stating that he went against his better judgment on more than one occasion because "nine times out of 10 you are expected to change your decision".
"I’ve probably been over to the screen five or six times and for at least two of them, I could have stuck with my initial decision,” he added.
"Straight away, Manchester United versus Southampton comes to mind as I went to the screen for something and I sent a player off, which was completely wrong, but because you have gone to the screen, nine times out of 10 you are expected to change your decision. When I was there, 99 times out of 100 you would change your decision.
"I think that will change because if you made a decision on the pitch and you made the correct call, when you’re walking over to the screen, you’re thinking to yourself ‘Why am I being sent here? I know what I have seen.’ The more you stick with your on-field decision, the more credibility you get from spectators, managers, and players. Also, it may stop VAR from sending a referee over to the screen every single time something happens. Have they got to go over every time? In my opinion, they haven’t."
This article was originally published on 90min as PGMOL respond to Mike Dean's astonishing Marc Cucurella hair pull claims.