Former Premier League referee Graham Barber has called for a major change to how VAR works after the controversial decision that saw Leeds star Jayden Bogle escape any kind of action for a reckless challenge on Tottenham’s Mathys Tel on Saturday.

The Leeds wing-back went unpunished for a tackle on Tel, despite his studs raking down the back of the winger’s Achilles, with on-field referee John Brooks deciding that the incident was not even worthy of a caution.

The VAR then spent more than four minutes reviewing the incident before ultimately deciding that Brooks need not go to the pitchside monitor to check, with the Premier League later releasing a statement on why no red card was given to Bogle.

It’s since been reported that Tottenham will lodge a formal complaint to refereeing body Pro Ref over the decision that ultimately forced Tel to be substituted, with fears over how long the Frenchman could now be sidelined for.

And, speaking to GIVEMESPORT, Barber said there were a number of inconsistencies in the refereeing at Elland Road and that Bogle getting away without any punishment was “not fair”.

He said: “There was a level of inconsistent decision-making during this match and I always used to try and think to myself, I never got it right all the time, but I didn’t like to create surprises for anybody.

“I wanted everybody in the stadium to know exactly what was going to happen or what I was going to do and we got to a situation in this match where I think most people didn’t know what was going to happen next.

“This incident comes along, and you and I have had discussions over the last couple of weeks about Mateta, which was the same type of incident, I think there was an incident in the Liverpool match against Arsenal, where you and I had a discussion about a player going down the back of the Achilles.

“There’s two things for me in this incident that didn’t feel right.

“A player’s gone off injured by, in my opinion, a very, very poor challenge and the result of that, is that the player who was offended upon, left the field of play because he was injured and couldn’t continue, and there was no action taken at all in that incident.

“So that doesn’t, when you try and balance everything up, that doesn’t seem fair.

“I would have hoped the referee would have thought that was a yellow card when he first saw it, because I thought it was quite a strong challenge.

“Whether it’s a red card or not, is up for discussion, because you and I have spoken over the last two weeks and we’ve agreed that some are and some aren’t.

“Trying to get consistency from match to match is very, very difficult, the only thing in this match was there wasn’t consistency.

“I thought it was a very, very poor challenge, it was reckless at best but you could describe it as dangerous and endangering the safety of the opponent, and did it endanger the safety of the opponent? Well, the answer is probably yes, because he had to leave the field of play about five minutes later.

“You know I’m a big advocate of supporting referees, and I know the guys do a great job out there, I just didn’t think with this incident the sum of it all didn’t add up to, if you like, an acceptable understanding and result.”

Barber calls for VAR change

Barber was then pressed on whether he felt a four-minute VAR delay should have resulted in on-field referee Brooks being told to take a look at the incident himself, as the VAR decision-making process allows, and was adamant in his response.

“Of course he should!” he said. “At the end of the day, the person who is most qualified, in my opinion is the referee oni the pitch and if I was the referee, and I refereed a long time ago before this happened, I would have wanted to make that decision based on what I saw.

“I’m in charge of the match, I’m the referee, I’m the person that the rules of the game say the opinion of the referee is final and I would want to see that.

“Interestingly enough, in the rugby union international I watched in the afternoon, two things happened in an incident. First of all, the referee always looks at the incident and discusses the incident with the TMO live on screen, and secondly, it doesn’t take four minutes.

“So I think we’ve got a way to go with VAR, I think it’s in development and we want to eradicate the obvious errors, but I think there’s a lot to be discussed during this match about potentially how things could have been handled differently.”