Referee Peter Bankes and his VAR team may have made a big mistake in the recent Tottenham Hotspur win as they awarded Harry Kane a questionable penalty.
What’s the latest on Spurs and VAR?
Spurs’ season suffered another blow on the weekend away at Aston Villa as their Premier League campaign continues to stumble towards the finish line.
Indeed, they suffered their fourth defeat in six games as goals from Jacob Ramsey and Douglas Luiz were enough to win the match 2-1.
The loss means Tottenham are now only ahead of Villa in sixth thanks to goal difference with three games to play and any hopes of securing Champions League football are looking like a distant memory.
One of the few enjoyable moments for Spurs on the day was a late consolation penalty for Kane but footage of the incident suggests it may well have been wrongfully awarded.
Did Harry Kane dive?
As you can see in the replay, while Kane does get to the ball first, he then initiates contact with Emi Martinez, essentially diving into the Vila goalkeeper to draw the foul.
And while this might have been enough to trick a referee live, the surprising thing is that referee Bankes didn’t initially award it. Indeed, VAR then got involved to tell the official to have another look at the incident and eventually, the penalty was awarded.
This seems quite remarkable as the technology is only supposed to intervene when a referee has made a clear and obvious error and that certainly wasn’t the case here with Kane initiating the contract by throwing himself to the ground.
Incidentally, this isn’t the first time the £200k-p/w Tottenham striker has won a dubious penalty against the Villans.
Back in 2021, he drew a foul from Matty Cash by completely missing the ball and then sticking his leg out to be tripped.
Gary Neville, on commentary duty, called it “cute”, while Gary Lineker added: “Never a penalty. A tad unscrupulous from Harry Kane” (via Inews).
