If I could offer some measured commentary, unless you have seen/heard the footage/convo between AR, Ref, VAR and AVAR then it’s all shots in the dark. A couple of folk are close, but others (Blew 2) are very wide of the mark. There is a lot of noise out there that is being taken as gospel when it really shouldn’t.
If you want to get to the bottom of what happened, can I suggest that a good angle is to go through/discuss the process as to what should happen with VAR/Ref and onfield review and why. That will pretty much give most of you the answers you all seek. As a parallel, consider Ronaldos’ YC against Iran at the WC for the elbow to the head because a lot of that process there is very very similar.
I’ll also leave you with the following commentary from the press whereby the CEO says technically correct but shouldn’t be up to the VAR, head of referees says wrong and should be only a YC and the MRP says it could be a RC. Make of that what you will.
The last paragraph says it all. Unless officials in the a-league can get on the same page, then VAR should be scrapped. The instruction to VARs is to avoid intervening in subjective and technical decisions which are not clearly and obviously wrong and leave those decisions to the on-field match officials.
How was the involvement of the VAR consistent with this? I understand the ref didn't see the incident, but the AR did. Have we now invented a new rule that there is a lower threshold for review if the decision is based on advice from the AR rather than the decision being made directly by the referee? Otherwise, this is just the VAR and the referee reinterpreting a subjective and technical decision made by the referee based on advice from the AR.
Even if you still disagree and think the VAR should have been involved, how is it consistent with the intent of the system to upgrade the punishment from a free kick all the way up to a red card? If a yellow card had been issued, there is no way the VAR would have got involved ... which just goes to show how perverse the final outcome was (both the red card and the refusal from the MRP to overturn the decision).
An absolute farce no matter which way you look at it.