Premier League video referee Lee Mason has sensationally left his place within the wake of a disastrous error that noticed Arsenal concede an important equaliser from Brentford final weekend.
Lee Mason had been a Premier League referee for 15 years, taking cost of 287 video games in that span, had this season labored solely as a Video Assistant Referee (VAR).
However he has now left the officers’ physique PGMOL by ‘mutual consent’ after failing to rule out Brentford’s aim in opposition to Arsenal for off-side.
It was his second high-profile error of the season, with the 51-year-old additionally being dropped from officiating a spherical of fixtures for a transparent mistake in September when he dominated out a Newcastle strike in opposition to Crystal Palace.
After failing to note Brentford’s Christian Norgaard was off-side when he assisted Ivan Toney for the late equaliser in opposition to the Gunners on the Emirates Stadium on the weekend, Mason has now departed.
The draw meant Arsenal dropped two factors within the title race, and had been subsequently overtaken by Manchester Metropolis when Pep Guardiola’s males beat Arsenal midweek.
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Arsenal supervisor Mikel Arteta was livid on the mistake.
“We ended the [Brentford] sport, after analysing it with the proof and pictures, with an enormous anger and disappointment,” he mentioned.
“As a result of that wasn’t a human error. That was a giant, massive, massive not conceiving and understanding your job. That’s not acceptable, I’m sorry. And that price Arsenal two factors and that’s not going to be restored.”
He added: “I recognize the honest, real apologies, nevertheless it doesn’t take away the actual fact we’ve two factors fewer. Everybody makes errors however that was one thing else. I wasn’t having it, the membership wasn’t having it.”
The referees physique PGMOL apologised for the ‘vital error within the VAR course of’ – with it revealed that Mason failed to attract the digital traces throughout the pitch to test for an off-side on Mason. The VAR test on the controversial aim had already taken two minutes 26 seconds.