Egyptian FA, not referees, rejected Zamalek request for derby VAR recordings

The Egyptian Football Association rejected Zamalek’s request to hear recordings of the referees’ conversations from the Cairo derby against Al Ahly, rather than the Egyptian Referees Committee, a committee source has told FilGoal.com.

Zamalek had asked to listen to discussions involving the Slovenian officiating team that oversaw the match, which Al Ahly won 2-0 during the sixth round of the Egyptian Premier League.

“Did the Referees Committee reject Zamalek’s request to hear the derby referees’ recordings? The Referees Committee has not rejected any club’s request to listen to VAR recordings,” the source said.

“The decision belongs to the Egyptian Football Association, which decided to suspend the experiment altogether after Al Ahly’s crisis last season.”

An Egyptian Football Association source had previously explained why Zamalek was not allowed to hear the video assistant referee conversations from the derby.

Zamalek issued a series of decisions after the match, saying the club had been harmed by serious refereeing errors during the fixture. The club also submitted an official complaint against the Referees Committee, the match director and Al Ahly supporters.

The defeat was Zamalek’s first of the season. It left them third in the table on 13 points, while Al Ahly’s victory took them to 16 points in second place.

What happened in Al Ahly’s dispute last season?

Al Ahly previously requested access to the conversations between the video assistant referees and Mahmoud Wafa, the referee of their match against Ceramica Cleopatra, after the on-field official declined to award a penalty in the closing stages.

The club submitted a request which the Egyptian Football Association approved, despite the Referees Committee having already published a video analysing the incident from a refereeing perspective.

A date was subsequently set for a hearing at the Egyptian Football Association’s headquarters. However, Al Ahly’s delegation was not allowed to record the VAR conversations during the session.