Simon Jordan brands Mike Dean and VAR Lee Mason a ‘pair of idiots’ for sending off West Ham’s Tomas Soucek at Fulham – and he insists officials who implement video technology ‘aren’t fit for purpose’ amid more controversy
- Mike Dean and VAR were slammed over Tomas Soucek’s red card at Fulham
- Dean sent off the West Ham star for an elbow after consulting VAR Lee Mason
- The red card has been overturned but referee Dean has received death threats
- Jordan is just one of many pundits who have slammed the quality of refereeing
Former Crystal Palace owner Simon Jordan branded Mike Dean and Lee Mason a ‘pair of idiots’ after the referee duo sent off Tomas Soucek in West Ham’s draw with Fulham last week.
Soucek was adjudged to have elbow Cottagers striker Aleksandr Mitrovic late in the game on Sunday night with on-pitch referee Dean brandishing a red card to the Hammers star after a VAR check with Mason at Stockley Park.
On Monday, Soucek’s dismissal and subsequent suspension was overturned but it was marred by news that referee Dean and his family have received death threats and the official has asked not to work on a Premier League game this weekend.
Simon Jordan called Mike Dean (left) and VAR Lee Mason ‘idiots’ for Tomas Soucek’s red card
Jordan backed the use of VAR but questioned the competences of the referees using it
Jordan backed the use of VAR in this instance but claims the sub-standard quality of officiating in today’s game renders the video technology useless.
He told talkSPORT: ‘VAR itself isn’t wrong, it’s the implementation. It’s the rules that underlay it.
‘VAR is a protocol of using a video to analyse an event, then you deploy the rule on it, then you employ a human over the top of it.
‘If the rule is an ass and the human interpretation of it, or the humans themselves aren’t very good at what they do, a la Mike Dean and Lee Mason, who were a pair of idiots on Saturday…
Soucek was adjudged to have struck Fulham’s Aleksandr Mitrovic but the card was overturned
‘Then you’ve got a situation where VAR couldn’t help anybody in any instance, if the people who implement it aren’t fit for purpose.
‘Referees have been absolutely mullered with death threats and constant questions around their refereeing quality, so we bring in VAR.
‘But now we’ve made VAR the criminal rather than the standard of refereeing, that has been going down for years and years and years!’
Jordan’s criticism comes after former referees’ chief Keith Hackett slammed Dean and Mason as a ‘hapless double act’ and called for the refereeing duo to step down from their roles.
Dean consulted VAR Mason on the call but the official (above) has received death threats
England’s top-flight has seen several questionable red card decisions in the past week or so, including two on the same day last week.
Arsenal’s David Luiz was sent off in the dying moments of the first half against Wolves for conceding a penalty, though many supporters questioned the defender’s intent to stop a goalscoring opportunity and whether the tackle warranted a yellow card instead.
Later on Tuesday evening, Southampton’s Jan Bednarek was dismissed by referee Dean for a similar challenge on Manchester United’s Anthony Martial, but the FA overturned the dismissal after a review.
Dean sent off Southampton’s Jan Bednarek last week with that call being overturned last week
Fellow talkSPORT pundit Danny Murphy branded all of the recent decisions as a ‘joke’ and questioned the ‘common sense’ of the Premier League winners.
‘I don’t know whether the referees are confused, if there are too many cooks or what, but VAR is creating chaos.
‘The officiating is not good, it’s got worse, which doesn’t help VAR, and I just think something has got to change. It’s becoming hard work watching football, it’s hard work waiting and waiting and getting frustrated when they get such easy decisions wrong.
Craig Pawson sent off David Luiz for a similar challenge to Bednarek’s but the red card stood
‘David Luiz getting sent off was a joke. Bednerek was a joke. Soucek was a joke. This isn’t football, this is not what we want, we don’t want to be waiting every time a goal is scored to see if it’s okay – I hate it.
‘Mike Dean has been reffing for years! Lee Mason has been reffing for years! So if they become worse overnight, have they lost their common sense? No!
‘They’re all over the place and the amount of subjective decisions they’re getting wrong is ridiculous… but they’re not being led.’