After the opening week of the new WSL season featured a number of controversial refereeing flashpoints – could we soon see VAR technology brought into the English top flight? The league bosses gave their view
The return of the WSL saw the standard of refereeing in the women’s game under the spotlight yet again.
Man Utd and Aston Villa’s thrilling clash at Villa Park featured a harsh-looking red card for Kirsty Hanson against her old club, which left a fuming Carla Ward to call for increased professionalisation in officiating post-match. In the same game, Maya Le Tissier was perhaps fortunate the lack of of VAR meant she escaped punishment for a strong challenge on Villa forward Ebony Salmon
Later in the day, Chelsea’s Guro Reiten was denied a perfectly good goal when the ball was deemed to have not crossed the line in their 2-1 win over Spurs on Sunday evening, replays showing it was well over. Lauren James scored soon after meaning the incident didn’t alter the outcome.
But in her Sky Sports post-match interview Emma Hayes was not happy, blasting the lack of technology following the Reiten ghost goal incident, calling for both VAR and goalline technology. In the wake of the latest incidents, could the WSL soon need to implement VAR to help officials with on-field decision making?