Mikel Arteta escapes ban for Newcastle rant after Premier League admitted Var is not good enough

Mikel Arteta has escaped punishment for his furious outburst at referees following Arsenal’s defeat at Newcastle United last month, in part because the Premier League has itself acknowledged the deficiencies and weaknesses of the Var system.

An independent regulatory commission has found that Arteta’s comments after the Newcastle game, in which he described the decision to allow Anthony Gordon’s winning goal as a “disgrace” and “embarrassing”, neither insulted the officials nor brought the game into disrepute.

It was also revealed that:

• Arteta had an “unproductive” meeting with refereeing chiefs only two days before Arsenal’s match against Newcastle.

• The Football Association argued that Arteta was more worthy of punishment due to his high-profile status.

• Joe Willock told Arsenal players the ball had gone out of play in the build-up to Gordon’s goal.

• Arsenal originally implied Arteta intended to use the Spanish meaning of the word “desgracia”, rather than “disgrace”.

It was accepted by the commission that the Arsenal manager’s comments were largely focused on the overall “deficient” state of the Var system – rather than constituting criticism of the performances or integrity of the referees.

In his evidence, Arteta expressed his “firmly held view that Var processes remain deficient”. It was found that his frustrations with Var were “particularly acute” at the time of the Newcastle match because of a meeting between managers and refereeing chiefs only two days earlier. Arteta’s view was that the meeting was “wholly unproductive”.

Arteta had said after the Newcastle defeat: “It’s an absolute disgrace. Again I feel embarrassed. I’ve been more than twenty years in this country and this is nowhere near the level to describe this as the best league in the world.”

The FA argued that these comments were insulting towards the referees and so inflammatory that they brought the game into disrepute.

But the independent commission disagreed, saying that Arteta’s words did not “cross the line” and that they effectively echoed what had already been admitted earlier in the campaign by the Premier League.

Earlier this season, the league acknowledged that there were “systemic weaknesses” in the Var processes after a Luis Diaz goal was wrongly disallowed for offside in Liverpool’s match against Tottenham Hotspur.

The commission found that Arteta’s post-match sentiments were “in reality little different than the acknowledgement by the Premier League in early October 2023 that improvement in the Var system and processes operated by the Premier League is required”.

The written reasons for the decision also reveal the FA argued that Arteta’s high-profile status was relevant to the case, and that his words could breach rules even if those same words might not be a breach when said by lower-profile managers. This argument was rejected by the commission.

It was disclosed that Arteta was especially emotional after the game at St James’ Park because some of his players had told him that Willock, formerly of Arsenal, had said the ball had gone out of play in the build-up to Gordon’s goal.

The comments by Willock increased Arteta’s self-described “sense of injustice and frustration” immediately after the match.

Refereeing audio from the match, released last month, confirmed that the goal was allowed to stand because the Var did not have enough camera angles to show whether the ball had gone out before Willock crossed it into the penalty area.

In early November, the FA wrote to Arteta and Arsenal to say that the manager’s comments were of “concern”.

As part of the written response from Arsenal, it was claimed that the word “disgrace” has a “very similar spelling and pronunciation to the Spanish ‘desgracia’... the Spanish word has connotations of misfortune, tragedy or bad luck rather than the connotations of the English equivalent which suggest contempt, dishonour or disrespect.”

It was claimed in the letter: “While the English meaning may lead to interpretations of abuse or insult, this was not the intended meaning of [Arteta’s] comments.”

At his subsequent hearing, Arteta said that any suggestion he had intended to use the Spanish meaning of the word was the result of a miscommunication between him and the club. He explained that he did indeed intend to use the English meaning of the word “disgrace”.

It is understood that the FA has no intention to appeal, although the governing body hopes that the decision to charge Arteta last month will deter other managers from producing similar outbursts over refereeing decisions.

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