Hakeem Yusuf
Jamie O’Hara has gone public. And he did not hold back.The former Tottenham midfielder released a strong statement after the Premier League confirmed its VAR verdict on Tammy Abraham’s controversial goal. Within minutes, a new fan point-of-view clip surfaced online. The video spread fast. X, Instagram, and TikTok lit up. Supporters from both sides piled in. The debate exploded.The incident happened late in the second half.Abraham rose highest at the near post and powered a header into the net. The assistant kept his flag down. The referee awarded the goal. Then VAR stepped in.After a long review, officials ruled the goal out for a marginal offside in the build-up.Stadium screens showed frozen lines. Fans booed. Players surrounded the referee. Abraham stood in disbelief.Soon after full time, the Premier League Match Centre released its explanation.They stated that Abraham’s teammate stood in an offside position and interfered with play by blocking the defender’s line of sight. On that basis, VAR advised an on-field review. The referee overturned the goal.That explanation did little to calm the storm.Then the fan POV clip appeared.Shot from the lower tier behind the goal, the video shows the defender stepping forward just before the cross. From this angle, many viewers felt Abraham looked clearly onside. The clip gained over two million views in hours. Comment sections filled with anger.That is when Jamie O’Hara stepped in.Posting on social media, O’Hara called the decision “another example of VAR losing touch with football reality.” He questioned how officials reached their conclusion and criticised the lack of transparency around the lines used in the offside check.He wrote:“You pause frames. You draw lines. You forget the flow of the game. Fans pay money to watch football, not geometry lessons. Tammy Abraham scores a proper goal and it gets wiped out over millimetres. This system needs fixing.”O’Hara also pointed to the defender’s movement in the fan video.“He steps up late. Anyone who played the game sees that. VAR looks for reasons to rule goals out.”His comments struck a chord.Former players echoed his view. Several pundits said the interference call felt forced. Others argued the league must release the full VAR footage and audio, not short written statements.Supporters went further.Many accused the Premier League of protecting referees instead of admitting mistakes. Some compared the decision to recent overturned goals involving Mitoma, Rashford, and Isak. The pattern, they said, feels familiar.Tammy Abraham stayed quiet publicly, but sources close to the player said he felt “robbed.” Teammates backed him in the dressing room. His manager refused to criticise officials directly, yet admitted the decision “changed the game.”And it did.At 1–0 up, momentum swings. Defenders drop deeper. Opponents chase. Instead, the match stayed level. Minutes later, Abraham’s side conceded on the break. A potential match-winner turned into a damaging defeat.That is why fans feel cheated.They do not argue against technology. They argue against how it gets used.They want:• Faster decisions• Clearer explanations• Consistent thresholds• Fewer microscopic offsides• Referees held accountableRight now, they see none of it.The Premier League insists VAR improves accuracy. Official data claims decision correctness sits above 95 percent this season. Fans reply with clips like this one. They point to moments where common sense disappears.O’Hara closed his statement with a blunt message:“Football belongs to the people in the stands. If VAR keeps taking goals away like this, you lose trust. And once fans lose trust, you have a bigger problem than any offside line.”As the clip continues to circulate, pressure builds on the league.Another weekend. Another VAR row.And once again, a player’s big moment fades into a technical argument nobody asked for.
Qudus Salihu
Nafisa
Mustapha Sheidu