Tottenham 1-1 Sporting Lisbon: VAR controversy ‘baffles’ Glenn Hoddle, says ‘people won’t come to the stadium’

Glenn Hoddle believes “people won’t come to the stadium” if VAR controversies continue after Harry Kane’s last-minute winner for Tottenham against Sporting Lisbon was taken away.

Kane thought he sent Spurs to the knockout stages of the Champions League when he got on the end of a headed ball down from Emerson Royal.

However, VAR ruled it out for offside meaning the match ended 1-1 at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

“People are not going to go to the stadium anymore,” Hoddle told BT Sport.

“The one thing about football, as a player you want to celebrate a goal, fans want to celebrate a goal.

“Nowadays, there’s going to be goals going in and eventually players will go ‘we can’t celebrate yet until we wait for VAR’. That’s taken everything we come to football for out of the game.

“I don’t want to see that. People won’t come to the stadium, they will watch it more on television and we don’t want that because you want atmosphere in the ground.

“It’s taken it out of the game, it’s exhausting the game in the sense of exhilaration of scoring a goal and it’s going to happen again in the future.”

The VAR decision lasted approximately four minutes with Spurs now needing to avoid defeat when they travel to Marseille to ensure a place in the last 16.

Conte was sent off after protesting the call to rule out the goal, which Hoddle feels will take the Spurs manager “a couple days” to get over.

“I don’t know how they can tell whether that foot [Emerson] is ahead of the ball,” he added.

“What part of the ball are they saying? The left side of it, the middle, the right? That’s how fractional it is.

“If they want to do it that way it would be tough on any team. It’s a bit baffling because you’re going to absolute, minute fractions there in a game that’s played hectically and quick.

“If it’s offside and it’s clear then you go, ‘Yeah, fair enough’ but to have goals like that chalked.”