Why Bellingham’s goal against Norway should have been ruled out by VAR
Jude Bellingham’s equaliser should have been ruled out by VAR. Here’s why.
Jude Bellingham did what Jude Bellingham does, and picked the ball up when nobody else wanted to. He drove left, dragging the Norwegian defence out of shape, and stabbed the ball in the back of the net. An equaliser to show the doubters he is ready to step up in the big moments not just for club, but for country as well.
But it should have been disallowed. And the VAR missed it.
As the ball came down from a Norway free-kick to be controlled by an England player, it hit the overhead camera wire that suspends the spider-cam above the pitch.
According to the rules and confirmed by former Premier League referee Mark Clattenburg, an analyst for FOX Sports, this should have constituted an automatic restart from the referee: “VAR can interfere if that contact of the ball on the camera cable is part of a reviewable incident, an attacking phase of play leading to a goal is part of the var reviewable incident. it should have been picked up the VAR.”
Given the fact that the officials missed it and it resulted in a goal, the VAR should have intervened to do so on his behalf.
Despite the protests from the Norway players, the goal was not overturned and remained on the scoreboard.
Update: FIFA later provided a comment on the matter, saying that they had checked the data but received no peak on the graph from the connected ball heartbeat sensor, and therefore the VAR was not called in.
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