Mariners say no room to appeal VAR reds

Dec 19, 2017 - 7:18 AM Central Coast will not appeal their contentious A-League red cards due to what the clubs says are complications arising from the very video assistant referee (VAR) that dished them out.

But chief executive Shaun Mielekamp hopes the Mariners' misfortune has prompted "important lessons" for Football Federation Australia.

In Saturday night's loss to Western Sydney, second-half yellow cards to Wout Brama and Jake McGing were both upgraded to reds after the VAR intervened.

While Brama's challenge was borderline, McGing's was significantly less offensive.

On both occasions, VAR Shaun Evans told on-field referee Alex King to review his original decision, with the result being two dismissals and an angry explosion from Mariners coach Okon, his bench and fans.

Those incidents, along with other weekend controversies, prompted Evans and a number of colleagues to be relieved of their VAR duties on Monday.

But it didn't help the Mariners who, despite their intention to appeal both cards on the grounds the referee had made an obvious error, said the presence of the VAR made it near-impossible to protest to the match review panel (MRP).

The club said it was led to believe by FFA that, for an appeal application to be successful, it would have to prove the incidents were not even worthy of the yellow card originally issued by King.

"The reality is that the way the cards have fallen there is no avenue within the rules to allow us to have a review that could apply common-sense outcomes," Mielekamp said.

"The appeal process rules were designed before the VAR was in and hopefully there is a review of these regulations to take into account the VAR's impact on these decisions."

In the absence of an appeal, the MRP upheld both cards on Monday evening and imposed the mandatory one-match suspension, meaning Brama and McGing will miss the Boxing Day trip to Adelaide.

"Everyone knows how frustrated we are by what has played out but in this instance we have to take it on the chin and hope that important lessons have been learnt by others at our expense," Mielekamp said.

"It is impossible not to feel hard done by with recent decisions that will affect our upcoming matches.

"All we can do is roll up our sleeves, move forward and keep fighting."

Source: AAP