Jens Toornstra should have gotten red on Sunday during the draw against Sparta Rotterdam (1-1), according to Willem van Hanegem and Reinold Wiedemeijer. The Feyenoord midfielder floored Abdou Harroui in the first half with a hard tackle, but referee Kevin Blom stuck to a yellow card. Van Hanegem is also targeting the VAR.

“Not wanting to play the ball in any way is just a red card. When we just had that VAR and you accidentally stood on someone’s toes, you got red after a signal from Zeist. Now we correct idiotic handballs and offside situations that have no meaning. but we suddenly find serious violations fine “, the former football player writes in it Algemeen Dagblad.

Also former arbitrator Wiedemeijer, who represented the KNVB FOX Sports goes through the VAR moments of the weekend, finds it ‘incomprehensible’ that Toornstra was allowed to remain standing. “In such clear situations the referee must do well and draw a red card here. He goes to yellow, but that is incomprehensible to me. I would have liked it if the VAR had intervened.”

The midfielder himself could understand why there was discussion about his violation. “My feeling in the match was not that the offense was very harsh”, Toornstra added RTV Rijnmond. “But I just saw it again and it was harder than I thought. So I was happy with yellow. Everyone who knows me also knows that I would never intentionally injure anyone.”