Newcastle United are set to face Blackburn Rovers away at Ewood Park tonight in the fifth round of the FA Cup.
Newcastle will be playing with no VAR for the second time this season, as they face championship opposition Blackburn Rovers on Tuesday (7:45pm kick-off).
Unfortunately for the Magpies, video assistance referee is only in place at Premier League fixtures, not the Championship or any league below.
However, there are a couple of exceptions for the use of VAR in English football outside of the Premier League. One being that VAR is in use at the Carabao Cup Semi-final and Final, it is also in place at any FA Cup fixture at a Premier League ground or Wembley Stadium.
Licensing rules of the FA Cup prevent the use of VAR at any stadium that is not in the Premier League, therefore as Blackburn currently plays in the championship, there will be no VAR involved.
This isn’t the first time Newcastle will have come up against opposition with no VAR in use, as their 3rd round FA Cup tie was away at Sunderland which they won 3-0 back in January.
While the result wasn’t impacted by VAR, there were still a few decisions that may have resulted in a second look by VAR. For example, Dan Ballard’s (Sunderland) last-ditch desperate challenge on Alexander Isak (Newcastle United) was seen as fair, although had VAR been involved it may have been a different story.
Newcastle’s match at Blackburn is only the other fifth-round cup tie without VAR, as Coventry beat Maidstone United 5-0 yesterday (Monday).
All the other fixtures will be played at a Premier League ground, these include: Bournemouth v Leicester City; Luton Town v Manchester City; Wolverhampton Wanderers v Brighton & Hove Albion; Nottingham Forrest v Manchester United; Chelsea v Leeds United; Liverpool v Southampton.
Leeds, Leicester City, and Southampton will play with the use of VAR for the first time since they all got relegated from the Premier League last season.
No replays are in place from the fifth-round tie, so if any of the matches go the distance and finish level after the 90 minutes and extra time, then the tie will be decided on penalties.
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