WHAT A PALAVAR

'Ludicrous' video ref is sadly here to stay but a few clear and obvious tweaks would give us daylight at the end of the tunnel

- COMMENT BY ANDY DUNN

IN ROME in 1999, Hicham El Guerrouj - the Moroccan middle distance athlete - had run a mile, showered and had started his media duty in the time it took for Antoine Semenyo's second goal to be disallowed at St James' Park on Tuesday night.

Well, not quite, but you get the point.

El Guerrouj's world mile record stands at 3:43.13 and it took officials 5:30.00 to cancel Semenyo's effort.

It does not take much longer for the winning horse to complete the three miles and two and a half furlongs of the Cheltenham Gold Cup course. And they have 22 fences to jump.

Even by VAR standards, it was peak farce and the VAR abolitionists - of which there were already many - had a bumper recruitment night.

It was ludicrous and hard not to join them. But the reality is that VAR is not going to be abolished.