Alan Shearer admits BBC could have sacked him over FA Cup controversy | Football | Sport

Alan Shearer has admitted the BBC might have been forced to sack him had he been on co-commentary duties for Newcastle United’s 3-1 victory at Aston Villa, following the catalogue of refereeing blunders in the FA Cup clash. Eddie Howe’s side fought back to triumph at Villa Park and secure their place in the fifth round of the competition.

However, the match was marred by multiple glaring mistakes from Chris Kavanagh and his assistant referee. Tammy Abraham’s opening goal was permitted despite being in an offside position, whilst Lucas Digne avoided a red card for a dangerous boot on Jacob Murphy.

During the second period, Newcastle were refused a clear-cut penalty when Digne handled Kieran Trippier’s delivery in the area, with Kavanagh awarding a free-kick instead. Following the FA Cup triumph, Shearer was analysing the contentious FA Cup encounter on ‘The Rest is Football’ podcast alongside Gary Lineker and Micah Richards.

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The St. James’ Park icon disclosed that working in the studio as a presenter, rather than on live commentary, spared him from getting himself into serious difficulty following Kavanagh’s baffling calls. “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 fewer 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,” he 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 RE the referee and the assistant, honestly!”

He added: “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.

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“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!

“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.

“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 coverage of the match, whilst Shearer was working as a pundit alongside Wayne Rooney and Dion Dublin, he delivered a damning assessment of the officiating. At the time, Shearer said: “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.

“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.”