Australian football's world first trial of Video Assistant Referee is "turning fans away," says coach

SYDNEY, Dec. 18 (Xinhua) -- The controversy surrounding Australian football's world first experimentation of video assistance technology has reached fever pitch over the weekend, after two Central Coast Mariners' players were sent from the field during their 2-0 defeat to the Western Sydney Wanderers.

In separate incidents during the second half, Wout Brama and Jake McGing had their yellow card fouls upgrading to red by the Video Assistant Referee (VAR).

The decision saw droves of infuriated fans walk out on the game in disgust and many watching around the country disappointed at the way the technology has been used to "over referee" the league.

"If you came to this game tonight and you left here no longer in love with football, who could blame you?" Central Coast Mariners manager Paul Okon said after the match.

"I think it's probably what everyone is talking about and that's not the reason why people are turning up watching, it's not why we turn up to play and coach."

During the post match press conference even Western Sydney Wanderers striker, Brendon Santalab, acknowledged although his team benefited from the decisions, the overuse of the VAR was not a good development for the game.

"I feel for the fans watching these games because we have fans waiting two, three minutes for decisions," Santalab said.

"The fans are getting upset, the players are standing around - it's a lose-lose."

"Something has to be done, it's unacceptable from the fans' perspective and the players' perspective and the crowd wants to see a flowing game, goals, entertainment... That's not entertainment!"

Although many have called for the season-long experiment to be scrapped, Head of the A-League, Greg O'Rourke remains committed to the technology.

"The VAR is set to be introduced in more global leagues around the world next year," O'Rourke said.

"It's a case of getting it right rather than walking away from the trial."

"Most other Australian sports have been using technology and referees and umpires in the stands or central hubs for many years and have taken time to improve the systems."

The latest controversy follows a farcical incident earlier in the season that saw a four minute delay in a match to confirm a handball penalty decision.

After his team lost 2-0 to Sydney FC that night, Perth Glory coach Kenny Lowe said "we're making a mockery of a lovely game."

"Look, we're all human and at the end of the day the VAR isn't a computer, it's another human making a decision so it's fallible."

"So we've already got someone who is fallible on the pitch, what's the point of making someone fallible upstairs? The guys will make a mistake, everyone get off their back a little bit, but this just compounds it now." Enditem.