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Everton goalkeeper Jordan Pickford will not face retrospective action for his challenge to Virgil van Dijk in Saturday’s Merseyside derby.
The FA determined that the incident was seen at the time after consulting with match officials, including the VAR.
The Liverpool defender suffered a cruciate ligament injury when he was caught by Pickford in the first half.
The injury is likely to keep him away for at least six months and potentially the rest of the season.
The FA has the power to intervene even if a decision is seen, but this is only used in exceptionally rare circumstances.
Obviously, these circumstances do not apply on this occasion.
How did Van Dijk get injured?
Fabinho sent a cross pass to the far post that Van Dijk was about to try to control when Pickford flew off feet first and caught the defender’s right leg in a scissor-like motion. Van Dijk felt pain immediately.
While Van Dijk was being treated, the VAR noted that he was verifying a “possible penalty”. In the end, it couldn’t have been a penalty because Van Dijk was offside. Referee Michael Oliver gave Everton a free kick, Van Dijk left the pitch and the game continued.
Confusion about potential punishment
Initially there was confusion about how Pickford’s challenge had been evaluated.
There was a theory that no action could be taken due to the offside decision. However, while that would have prevented a penalty from being awarded, it would not have prevented Pickford from receiving a red card.
Obviously, neither Oliver nor the VAR saw fit to impose such a punishment.
The VAR can only intervene for infractions that it considers worthy of a red card. If, for example, they felt that Pickford had made a genuine attempt to play the ball, and Oliver hadn’t seen the incident at all, it would only have been a yellow card.
However, they could also have asked Oliver to rewatch the incident on the field side monitor.
FA cannot re-referee incidents
The Football Association still has the power to take retrospective action on match incidents that are not seen by the referees, including the VAR. However, they are not supposed to re-arbitrate situations, which has caused controversy in the past.
A good example of this was in March 2013 when Wigan’s Callum McManaman caught Newcastle’s Massadio Haidara with a terrible challenge at DW Stadium.
Haidara was removed on a stretcher, but because one of the officials saw the tackle, no further action could be taken, even though most observers felt it was worthy of a red card.
Newcastle managing director Derek Llambias later said the FA’s disciplinary process “was not fit for purpose.”
In theory, the VAR should not ignore any incidents. However, as demonstrated in the first game of ‘Project Restart’ when Sheffield United denied a goal at Aston Villa After the VAR failed to detect that the goalline technology had failed, even the most basic errors can sometimes occur.
