Gary Lineker believes football is being ‘taken over’ by referees as he slammed the decision to rule out Southampton’s goal on Sunday.
The former England striker has also taken issue with officials co-commentating on matches, too.
The Saints, who sit bottom of the Premier League, saw Ryan Manning’s goal at Molineux controversially chalked off.
It had originally stood, but was ruled out after VAR intervened with Mateus Fernandes being penalised for a foul on Nelson Semedo. Wolves went on to win 2-0.
Discussing the moment on The Rest Is Football, Lineker said: “I just wonder if [the officials] sit there and think, with the referee’s call, we’re not really getting involved enough.
“‘Oh I want to get involved in this game a bit more’.
“It’s almost like the game of football has been taken over by referees. They’re now the people that make the laws.
“They define the laws. They referee the games. Now they’ve got VAR and now we’ve got this fad of co-commentating referees!”
At this point, his co-hosts Micah Richards and Alan Shearer start cracking up as Lineker got more and more irate.
“It’s like they’re taking us over!” Lineker continued, throwing his hands up in the air.
“We’ve been invaded by Mars by a load of referees!
“Nearly everyone is using a referee as a co-commentator to tell us when someone is offside, but errrr we can see it ourselves?!”
After Richards said he feels for referees, Lineker responded: “Me too, It’s the toughest job.”
Richards returned to backing up the former Tottenham man’s point, though, continuing: “But when a referee is doing a game and the referee doing commentary gets it wrong, then what is the point in having them?”
He continued: “We didn’t take a referee licence, they should know all the rules from start to finish.
“We’re just using common sense as ex-players, we know the rules. You certainly do Gaz, anyway.”
Shearer backed the two of them up, as he too weighed in on Saturday’s decision.
“My take on it is that VAR referee should not have got involved,” he said. “He should have just let it carry on.
“It was a goal. And he had a bloody good view of it the referee on the pitch. He was only ten yards away, he was staring right at it.”
The PGMOL were plunged into further controversy two days after the Southampton controversy.
Footage emerged on social media appearing to show Premier League referee David Coote dropping insulting comments about Liverpool and their former manager Jurgen Klopp.
That included calling the Reds legend a ‘German c***’.
Coote has been suspended while the PGMOL are investigating the incident.
