Steve Cooper confirmed that Leicester City met with Premier League representatives to discuss the controversial Video Assistant Referee (VAR) call at Selhurst Park.
Speaking at a pre-match press conference, Cooper described the VAR decision to allow Jean-Phillipe Mateta’s goal to stand as “an awful human error.” He added that the offside image released to the media was inaccurate, as it had been frozen at the “wrong time.”
“At the time, we didn’t feel like the decision was right. We asked for clarity. We have seen images, and where they froze it, it was at the wrong time. It was deemed to be onside,” Cooper said.
Steve Cooper claims that the wrong image was used
“Everything you see on Match of the Day or Sky has been false in terms of the decision because it was stopped at the wrong time. We showed them the real footage and some extra footage we have. We presented it to them, we gave it to them, but we haven’t heard anything back since.”
Cooper claimed that it was Leicester’s “obligation” to show the correct images, as the wrong image had supposedly been shared with the media. He also mentioned that the Foxes had shown Premier League representatives broadcast footage that was not “anywhere near the media.”
“[Leicester] We’ve been really hard done by. We’ve been let down. We’ve told the Premier League what our thoughts are, and the referee department, and they met us on Monday.
“We asked them to explain why they came to the decision they did, and it confirmed to us it was wrong in terms of when they stopped the game. We showed them some broadcast footage and other broadcast footage that’s not been anywhere near the media.
“The images they’ve used are the ones where they did stop it, and he is onside, but they stop it after the ball has been kicked. If they stopped it when the ball had been kicked, they’d have seen he was offside. But they did it after the ball had left the foot.”
“We’ve seen some clear images of that. We can’t release them and we won’t. We sent our presentation to them and the footage and we’ve not heard anything back.”
“Own up to it” says Cooper
The Foxes manager admitted he was disappointed that the Premier League had not apologised for their mistake. The footage provided by Leicester apparently showed that the VAR officials had frozen the frame at the wrong time.
“We felt very let down by it and we needed to stand up for the club, the players, and supporters, and tell them what we thought. It doesn’t change the result. We’ll be on the end of good and bad decisions that will influence the game like that one did.
“But own up to it. Don’t hide behind it. Have the humility to go: ‘We made a big mistake there and we’ll learn from it.’ That’s what managers will be doing and players will be doing. We need to see the same from referees. He didn’t intend to make a mistake, but he made a massive mistake.”
