Former Referee Issues Strong Verdict On VAR Call in Sunderland vs Brighton

Former Premier League referee Graham Barber believes VAR were wrong to intervene in the Sunderland vs Brighton & Hove Albion match that resulted in Pascal Struijk being sent off.

Brighton won the match at the Stadium of Light 2-0 to continue their impressive start to the 2026/27 Premier League campaign, with the sending off of Struijk not impacting them in the end.

But, with the scoreline only at 1-0 at the time of the incident, such a mistake could have had an adverse effect on the Seagulls picking up all three points.

There were 56 minutes on the clock when Struijk tangled with Sunderland’s Wilson Isidor 25 yards from goal, with Brighton having just taken a 1-0 lead.

Neither referee Thomas Bramall nor his assistant saw anything untoward in the coming together, with pay resuming. However, the on-field referee was called to check his monitor by the VAR Neil Davies and, upon reflection, opted to overturn his decision and send Struijk off for the denial of a goalscoring opportunity.

Barber, who officiated in the Premier League for nearly ten years, believes a mistake was made.

Speaking exclusively to GIVEMESPORT, he said:

“The second thing that I think is that this season in particular, I think, Pro Ref are looking to give the referee, the on-field referee, the opportunity to make the decisions, the opportunity to make decisions to reflect the standard of refereeing and why he’s there in the first place and that’s because he is one of the best in the country.

“So I’m really, really pro letting the referee on the field of play make his own decisions, and shock horror, he got it right first time round. He’s got it right. The denial of an obvious goalscoring opportunity is what we’re talking about and to me, I always used to think to myself, does that mean in the next two to three seconds that that player is going to have an obvious shot on goal?

“That wasn’t the case in this game. In fact, I would question whether in that particular game, whether Isidor of Sunderland was in control of the ball. So if he’s not in control of the ball, how can he possibly be having an obvious goalscoring opportunity, because first of all, he’s got to bring it under control.

“I thought it was a foul, potentially a foul, but was it, you know, was it an obvious mistake by the referee? I don’t think so, because in my opinion, I think the referee got it right.”