VAR Weekend Review: two Man City handball appeals, Rice and Madrid derby errors

The most revealing VAR story of the weekend was not one spectacular overturn.

It was how often VAR looked at, or had the power to review, an incident and left the original decision alone.

Manchester City’s extraordinary 5–3 win over Sunderland contained two Sunderland handball appeals, a long offside check that kept Brian Brobbey’s second goal alive and a late VAR overturn that awarded Erling Haaland’s goal. Brighton–Arsenal ended with a subjective line being drawn between petulance and violent conduct. The Madrid derby produced three separate disciplinary controversies, including one non-intervention that, according to AS, Spain’s refereeing committee now believes should have been a red card.

Serie A supplied the broader argument: has the push for fewer interventions raised the VAR threshold too far?

These were the VAR decisions, checks and non-interventions that mattered most across Europe this weekend.

Manchester City 5–3 Sunderland: two handball appeals and two major offside checks

Eight goals would normally be enough drama for one match. City–Sunderland also gave VAR one of its busiest and most revealing afternoons of the weekend.

Brobbey’s 2–2 survived a long offside check

Brian Brobbey equalised for Sunderland for the second time in the 33rd minute, turning in Thomas Meunier’s pass.

Then everyone waited.

Manchester City’s own match report described the VAR check as “protracted” before Brobbey was confirmed onside and the goal stood. It was a useful reminder of an important distinction in VAR protocol: a factual offside decision is not protected by the same “clear and obvious error” threshold used for subjective decisions.

The issue here was not whether the assistant referee had made an obviously bad call. VAR had to establish whether Brobbey was onside.

He was, by a very small margin.

That does not make a long check ideal. Semi-automated offside technology is supposed to speed up exactly this type of decision. When a check still takes a long time, the frustration is understandable, particularly when the eventual answer depends on a tiny positional margin.

But the question for VAR is still binary: onside or offside.

Sunderland’s first handball appeal: Marc Guéhi

Before Antoine Semenyo made it 3–2 shortly before half-time, Sunderland appealed for handball against Marc Guéhi.

RTE’s match report records the appeal and that nothing was given before City went on to score.

There is not enough public explanation from the officials to label this a missed penalty. That distinction matters. An appeal can be worth reviewing without the evidence being strong enough to call the decision wrong.

What it does establish is that Sunderland had already raised one handball complaint before the incident that became the bigger post-match controversy.

The Anderson handball: should Sunderland have had a penalty?

The clearer debate came later.

Enzo Le Fée challenged Elliot Anderson in City’s penalty area and Anderson went to ground. The ball then made obvious contact with Anderson’s hand as he tried to deal with it.

Referee Robert Jones played on. VAR upheld the decision.

Sky Sports replay of Elliot Anderson’s handball incident during Manchester City v Sunderland. →

This is exactly the kind of VAR moment that can disappear if a review focuses only on overturns. The referee made no award, VAR did not send him to the monitor, and the match continued. Yet it became one of the most discussed decisions of an eight-goal game.

The key legal point is that contact with the hand is not automatically an offence. The position and movement of the arm, whether the player has made the body unnaturally bigger and the specific movement immediately before contact all matter.

The replay makes the contact easy to see. The harder question is whether it crossed the handball threshold.

That is where the disagreement remains.

Confirmed: Sunderland made two separate handball appeals involving City players. The Anderson incident was checked and the no-penalty decision stood.

Still disputed: whether Anderson’s action should have been penalised, and whether the earlier Guéhi appeal also deserved more scrutiny.

Haaland’s fifth goal: VAR overturned the offside call

There was one clear late intervention.

Joško Gvardiol was flagged offside before crossing for Haaland to score City’s fifth. VAR established that Gvardiol was onside and recommended that the goal be awarded.

So the same match contained almost every version of modern VAR: a long factual offside check, two handball appeals without a penalty, and an offside decision overturned to award a goal.

For a match with eight goals, the VAR story was almost as busy as the football.

Brighton 3–0 Arsenal: why Declan Rice stayed on

Brighton’s win over Arsenal was already settled when Declan Rice and Malick Yalcouyé produced one of the weekend’s most debated disciplinary moments.

Rice reacted after contact from Yalcouyé and kicked out at the Brighton midfielder away from the ball. Referee Darren England showed a yellow card.

VAR checked for possible violent conduct and left the yellow in place.

The explanation reported after the match was that Rice’s action did not meet the threshold for violent conduct and was considered “petulant at best”.

That wording is what makes the case interesting.

Violent conduct does not require a player to injure an opponent. But VAR still has to judge the nature of the action, including its force, brutality and aggression. A deliberate act can therefore be misconduct without automatically becoming a red-card offence.

The split among experienced observers showed why the incident is worth more than a simple freeze-frame. talkSPORT’s panel argued that Rice should have been sent off. Alan Shearer took the opposite view on Match of the Day, saying the action was not aggressive enough to justify red.

Read the full analysis: Why VAR let Declan Rice stay on

Confirmed: Rice was booked and VAR checked whether the incident should be upgraded to violent conduct.

Still disputed: whether the deliberate off-the-ball kick had enough force and aggression to cross the red-card threshold.

Atlético Madrid 2–1 Real Madrid: VAR corrected two decisions — but missed another

No match this weekend exposed the strengths and weaknesses of VAR more clearly than the Madrid derby.

Three incidents demanded different types of intervention.

Bellingham booked — then VAR corrected the identity

In the 35th minute, Jude Bellingham was initially booked after a clash with Cristian Romero.

The replay showed that the foul had actually been committed by Romero on Bellingham. VAR sent referee Miguel Ángel Ortiz Arias to the monitor, Bellingham’s yellow was removed and Romero was booked instead.

The important point is that the intervention corrected a basic factual problem: the wrong player had been punished for the foul.

Real Madrid argued Romero’s challenge deserved red rather than yellow, but the disciplinary colour remained yellow after the review.

Lee Kang-in on Valverde: no card, no intervention — and a major post-match development

Nine minutes later came the incident that may prove to be the weekend’s most significant VAR non-intervention.

Lee Kang-in caught Federico Valverde high on the left ankle with his studs. No card was shown and VAR did not intervene.

LALIGA video embedded by AS in its report on the Lee Kang-in–Federico Valverde incident. →

That is an important distinction from ordinary post-match outrage. This is not simply Real Madrid arguing that an opponent should have been dismissed. AS is reporting the internal assessment of the body responsible for Spanish refereeing.

Valverde was later diagnosed with severe trauma to his left ankle. The injury does not determine whether the challenge was a red card — decisions must be judged by the action itself, not the eventual medical outcome — but it underlines the force involved.

For VAR, the central question is serious foul play. Was the challenge made with excessive force or did it endanger the safety of the opponent?

According to AS’s reporting on the CTA assessment, the answer was yes.

Huijsen: yellow upgraded to red after VAR review

Early in the second half, Dean Huijsen fouled Giuliano Simeone inside the penalty area.

The referee awarded Atlético a penalty and initially showed Huijsen a yellow card. VAR recommended an on-field review. After watching the replay, Ortiz Arias upgraded the sanction to red.

AS reports that the CTA considers that intervention correct: Huijsen held his opponent without making an attempt to play the ball, and the denial of an obvious goalscoring opportunity therefore remained a red-card offence despite the penalty award.

That sequence makes the Lee incident even more striking.

Within the same match, VAR successfully corrected mistaken identity and successfully upgraded Huijsen’s yellow to red. Yet it stayed out of the Lee challenge that Spain’s refereeing committee, according to AS, now views as a sending-off.

Confirmed: VAR corrected Bellingham’s mistaken yellow and upgraded Huijsen from yellow to red.

Reported post-match assessment: AS says the CTA believes Lee should also have been sent off and that VAR should not have allowed the incident to pass without intervention.

Serie A’s “silent VAR” debate is getting louder

Italy supplied a different VAR story this weekend.

Rather than one isolated controversy, two matches added to a growing debate about whether Serie A’s intervention threshold has become too high.

Bologna 1–1 Torino: Heggem on Oristanio

Late in Bologna–Torino, Gaetano Oristanio went down in the penalty area after contact from Torbjørn Heggem.

Referee Marco Guida waved play on. There was no on-field review.

Gazzetta dello Sport’s analysis was unusually unequivocal. It argued that the replay showed Heggem moving Oristanio’s leg and that a penalty should have been awarded.

The article placed the incident in a wider context. Serie A has begun the season with very few on-field VAR reviews, amid a refereeing approach designed to reduce unnecessary whistles and keep matches flowing.

That philosophy has an obvious attraction. VAR was never intended to re-referee every piece of contact.

But Bologna–Torino exposes the risk at the other end of the scale: if the intervention threshold becomes too high, an error can remain simply because VAR is reluctant to challenge the referee.

Juventus 2–0 Atalanta: Kalulu’s shirt pull on Rowe

The argument became louder on Sunday.

Atalanta appealed for a penalty when Pierre Kalulu visibly pulled Jonathan Rowe’s shirt inside the Juventus penalty area. Referee Luca Zufferli allowed play to continue and VAR did not intervene.

Gazzetta’s match report describes the shirt pull as clear, while noting that Rowe appeared to exaggerate his fall.

Atalanta coach Maurizio Sarri was far less restrained afterwards. His position was simple: if VAR is not going to intervene on that type of incident, there is little point having it.

This is where the Serie A debate becomes more interesting than either incident in isolation.

A higher threshold can produce a faster, less interrupted game. It can also preserve the referee’s authority and prevent forensic re-refereeing.

But “let it flow” cannot become a separate law of the game. The Laws still apply, and VAR still exists to correct clear and obvious errors in the four reviewable categories.

Bologna–Torino and Juventus–Atalanta therefore raise the same broader question from different incidents:

Has Serie A raised the intervention threshold so high that some reviewable mistakes are now being left on the field?

That may become one of the season’s most important VAR debates if the pattern continues.

Two quieter Premier League checks show what VAR looks like when it works without drama

Not every check deserves a controversy.

Two other Premier League incidents this weekend are useful precisely because they show VAR performing more routine work.

Fulham–Manchester United: Bassey handball appeal

In the 86th minute, Lisandro Martínez played the ball into Calvin Bassey’s hands inside the Fulham penalty area.

No penalty was awarded.

The Premier League Match Centre published the officials’ reasoning. The assistant referee and VAR both judged Bassey’s arms to be close to his body, and the on-field decision was confirmed.

There was visible hand contact, but the arm position was the decisive factor.

Tottenham–Aston Villa: Kudus goal ruled out

Mohammed Kudus thought he had scored for Tottenham after Andy Robertson’s cross was parried into his path.

The goal was initially awarded. VAR then identified Robertson in an offside position during the build-up and recommended that the goal be disallowed.

That was a factual intervention rather than a subjective judgement about force, intent or body position.

It is worth including because it provides useful contrast with the weekend’s difficult cases. VAR can answer some questions with relative certainty. The arguments explode when the technology has shown everyone the same images but a human still has to decide whether a legal threshold has been crossed.

What did this weekend tell us about VAR?

The biggest theme was not technology.

It was the intervention threshold.

At Manchester City, the most controversial decision was a handball check that changed nothing. Rice’s yellow remained yellow because VAR judged his kick below the violent-conduct threshold. Lee Kang-in escaped sanction altogether in Madrid, only for AS to report hours later that Spain’s refereeing committee believes he should have been sent off. In Italy, two separate penalty appeals fed an increasingly public argument about whether VAR officials are being encouraged to stay out too often.

At the same time, VAR correctly handled several factual or clearly reviewable situations: Brobbey was confirmed onside, Haaland’s goal was restored, Bellingham’s mistaken booking was corrected, Huijsen’s yellow became red and Kudus’s goal was ruled out for offside in the build-up.

That contrast is important.

VAR is often described as though it either “works” or “doesn’t work”. A single weekend shows why that is too simple.

The technology can tell officials where a player was standing. It can provide an angle the referee did not have. It can expose mistaken identity.

What it cannot remove is the judgement built into words such as “unnaturally bigger”, “excessive force”, “serious foul play” and “clear and obvious”.

This weekend, the hardest arguments were not about whether VAR had the pictures.

They were about what officials chose to do with them.

About this article

VarVote’s Weekend Review focuses on significant VAR decisions, checks and non-interventions across Europe’s major leagues. Confirmed facts are separated from interpretation, and incidents are included for their wider VAR relevance rather than simply because a review occurred.