Former Premier League referee Graham Barber has told GIVEMESPORT that VAR in football could benefit from learning lessons from how technology is used in rugby union after what happened during the Leeds United vs Tottenham Hotspur clash on Saturday.

There was huge controversy during the match at Elland Road after Jayden Bogle went unpunished for a studs down the Achilles challenge on Spurs star Mathys Tel.

Referee John Brooks only gave a free-kick for the incident, which replays showed was a nasty-looking tackle as the Leeds star planted his left foot down the Spurs player's Achilles as he attempted to tackle with his right foot.

The VAR spent more than four minutes reviewing the incident before ultimately refusing to suggest Brooks take a look at the pitchside monitor, meaning Bogle did not even get a yellow card for the foul, with the Premier League later releasing a statement on why no red card was given to Bogle.

Speaking exclusively to GMS, Barber said there were a number of inconsistencies in the refereeing of the match at Elland Road and felt that Tel going off injured and 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.

Leeds vs Tottenham incident 'didn't feel right'

"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.

Barber wants rugby union style VAR

"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."

When pressed on if he thought a four-minute VAR delay should have resulted in on-field referee John Brooks being told to take a look at the incident for himself, as the VAR decision-making process allows, Barber was adamant.

"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."