Alan Shearer Admits BBC Could Have Sacked Him Over FA Cup Refereeing Rage
Newcastle United legend Alan Shearer has confessed that the BBC might have been forced to sack him had he been providing live co-commentary during his team's contentious FA Cup victory over Aston Villa. The match, which saw Eddie Howe's side triumph 3-1 at Villa Park to secure a place in the fifth round, was overshadowed by a series of glaring officiating errors that left Shearer fuming.
A Catalogue of Refereeing Howlers
The FA Cup clash was marred by multiple mistakes from referee Chris Kavanagh and his assistant. Tammy Abraham's opening goal for Aston Villa was allowed to stand despite a clear offside position, while Lucas Digne avoided a red card for a dangerous challenge on Jacob Murphy. After the break, Newcastle were denied a clear penalty when Digne handled Kieran Trippier's delivery in the area, with Kavanagh incorrectly awarding a free-kick instead.
The linesman failed to spot both Abraham's offside and the handball inside the box, compounding the errors. Speaking on 'The Rest is Football' podcast alongside Gary Lineker and Micah Richards two days after the match, Shearer revealed that working as a studio presenter rather than on live commentary spared him from serious repercussions.
Shearer's Explosive Assessment
"You've got time to think when you're in the studio, because more often or not, by the time they've come to you, you've got a few minutes to work out what you're going to say, how you're going to say it, and you've got time to look at your analysis - unless it happens in the last seconds," Shearer explained. "If I were on the co-comms on the Aston Villa vs Newcastle one, I might have been sacked! Because with what I wanted to say regarding the referee and the assistant, honestly!"
He continued with a withering critique of the officials' performance: "We're allowed a bad day, but let's be honest, guys, those three yesterday, seriously, how bad were they? They were terrible. I would say out of five, maybe four, big decisions, simple decisions, I would say, they got one correct."
The VAR Comfort Blanket Theory
Shearer argued that the officials' reliance on Video Assistant Referee technology in the Premier League had left them unprepared for the FA Cup match, where VAR was not in use. "What's been happening is they've been with VAR since the beginning of the season, all the Premier League, and everything they've had to do. Then they get to that game and all of a sudden, they haven't got their comfort blanket that they have been relying on to say, 'Oh it doesn't really matter if I get it wrong because the VAR will correct me.' Well yesterday, because of that, they were hopeless!"
He emphasized the severity of the mistakes: "Digne should have been sent off for a terrible tackle. The assistant who missed the handball also missed the handball, a simple decision. I know it's a hard job, but we all have a bad day. Come on, guys, they have to do better."
Potential Backlash and Broader Implications
Shearer noted that Newcastle's victory had spared the officials from even greater criticism, but warned of the consequences if the result had been different. "At this level of football, the importance of it. Luckily, Newcastle won the game because of the decisions that went against them, but can you imagine if they hadn't gone through? The backlash that would have happened."
During the BBC's match coverage, where Shearer served as a pundit alongside Wayne Rooney and Dion Dublin, he delivered a similarly scathing assessment. At the time, he stated: "He cost for the offside free-kick (Tammy Abraham's opening goal for Villa) and he's 15 yards away from that. Goodness me! If you ever needed any evidence of the damage VAR has done to the referees, I think today is a great example of that, because these guys, I think, look petrified to make a decision today because they didn't have a comfort blanket."
Shearer concluded that the standard of officiating is declining due to over-reliance on technology: "And that's the damage it's done to the officials. For me, they're actually getting worse because I really don't think that is a difficult decision at all, in fact it's easy and at this standard, that has to be given. There's no excuse for the assistant not to tell his referee that he's got that totally wrong."
