Football team win historic case against VAR - forcing crunch match to be replayed

Controversy has struck from VAR in a different way to usual after Belgian top-flight side Genk secured an historic replay with Anderlecht after a mishap led to them appealing their initial 2-1 loss

Belgian top-flight side Genk sensationally successfully won an appeal to replay their game against Anderlecht – due to a VAR blunder.

The Belgian Pro League outfit appealed their 2-1 loss in December against their rivals. They contested the outcome after Genk forward Yira Sor's first half goal was disallowed by VAR.

Sor's goal occurred after he followed up on Bryan Heynan's missed penalty to score past Leicester City legend Kasper Schmeichel, who initially saved the spot-kick. Replays showed that the Nigerian was already inside the penalty area when Heynan first made contact with the ball, which led the VAR to recommend to referee Nathan Verboomen that Sor's goal should not be allowed to stand.

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However, what VAR missed is that two Anderlecht players had also encroached into the penalty area. According to the laws of football, disallowing Genk's goal was the wrong decision as the referee should have allowed the penalty to be retaken, rather than awarding Anderlecht a free kick.

Anderlecht eventually won the game 2-1. But that wasn't the end of the saga as Genk appealed the decision to the Disciplinary Council for Professional Football, who overturned the refereeing body's decision of initially ruling that the incident was purely a VAR error, rather than a misapplication of the laws of the game.

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"The Disciplinary Council for Professional Football has ruled that the Anderlecht - KRC Genk match at the end of last year should be replayed," Genk said in a statement. "The Disciplinary Council initially declared itself competent to rule on the matter.

"This overturned the earlier decision of the Professional Referee Department not to replay the match. The Council then followed KRC Genk's argument that the match officials misapplied the rules at the penalty phase in question.

"KRC Genk hopes that a date will be found soon to replay the match." Fans on social media had a go at VAR with one X (formerly known as Twitter) user writing: "The basic concept of var was to minimise the human error". Meanwhile, another added: "VAR is destroying football".