SPFL referees fired ominous VAR warning as Premier League official DROPPED after Arsenal offside blunder

The English Premier League could have set a precedent for the Scottish Premiership after referee Lee Mason was DROPPED after his VAR blunder during Arsenal's draw with Brentford.

With the Gunners in the hunt for the title they took on Thomas Frank's side where Leandro Trossard opened the scoring in a bid to extend their gap over Manchester City to eight points, though it was short lived. Ivan Toney struck an equaliser with just 15 minutes remaining to ensure the Gunners dropped points for the second game running.

However, the goal should NOT have stood. With VAR official Lee Mason failing to check up on a ball that came into the box where two Brentford players were clearly offside, Toney scored from the resulting chaos to make Arsenal nervous about their Premier League crown. And that now means that Mason has been dropped from Premier League fixtures next weekend - which could make SPFL referees sweat over their appointments with VAR discourse increasing by the minute.

Mason and PGMOL - the refereeing governing body for the Premier League - put the failure to pick up the offside Brentford player as "human error". A similar mistake was also flagged up during Brighton's clash with Crystal Palace which was also not picked up on.

PGMOL chief Howard Webb was left fuming about the mistake. A statement read: "Both incidents, which were due to human error and related to the analysis of offside situations, are being thoroughly reviewed."

There has been a notable increase in appeals for red cards of late in the Scottish Premiership, with St Johnstone striker Nicky Clark winning his appeal after being sent off following a VAR check against Rangers. Mason will return to action on the weekend of 25th/26th February.

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