Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp believes injury time was cut short in their FA Cup defeat on Saturday because of TV scheduling.
The video assistant referee was used three times in the first half of West Brom's 3-2 victory.
Klopp claims the 4th official Jon Moss told him that only five additional minutes were added because of BT Sport's schedule.
The delay in decisions from the VAR, the goals scored and some stoppage for injuries could have seen between 8-10 minutes added on.
Klopp fumed that the playing time was cut short seemingly at the behest of the broadcaster:
“What I heard was that the actual extra-time in the first half should have been 10 minutes. It was only four minutes. I heard that television said it’s not longer than four minutes,” said Klopp.“Of course that’s not possible, you can’t cut match time because there is something else to broadcast.
“I don’t know what was afterwards, maybe the news or something. It was 10 minutes and so you need to play 10 minutes longer. You cannot say it’s now a little bit too long.
BT Sport presenter Jake Humphrey took to twitter to refute Klopp’s claim:
“Laughable. Not only would we accept any amount of injury time, we had no need to rush off air... it’s also impossible for us to influence such a decision.”
Still can’t believe that Jurgen Klopp ludicrously even thought to suggest that broadcasters can influence added-on time in a football game...😳 https://t.co/a7rHodoCn0
— Jake Humphrey (@mrjakehumphrey) January 30, 2018
