PGMOL has admitted “significant human error” was behind Luis Diaz’s goal being ruled out for Liverpool at Tottenham; the VAR team mistakenly thought the on-field decision had been to award the goal; VAR Darren England and assistant VAR Dan Cook stood down from next scheduled matches
Luis Diaz’s goal for Liverpool at Tottenham was incorrectly disallowed for offside after the VAR mistakenly believed the on-field decision had been to award the goal.
The PGMOL admitted immediately after Tottenham’s 2-1 win that “a significant human error occurred” when Diaz’s strike was ruled out, adding: “This was a clear and obvious factual error and should have resulted in the goal being awarded through VAR intervention.”
It was initially believed that VAR Darren England had failed to check whether a Tottenham defender had played Diaz onside by drawing the on-screen lines.
But, in a remarkable twist, it has now emerged the VAR incorrectly thought the on-field decision was that a goal had been awarded, when in fact it had not been.
This resulted in England, despite realising that Diaz was onside, relaying a message of ‘check complete’ and the goal being ruled out.
There was less than 40 seconds between Diaz’s shot hitting the back of the net and play being restarted, while there was less than 10 seconds between TV viewers being shown a VAR review was taking place and the check being completed.
The score at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium was 0-0 at the time, with Liverpool down to 10 players after Curtis Jones’ red card.
To add insult to injury for Liverpool, Heung-Min Son scored Spurs’ opener two minutes later, while a Joel Matip own goal in injury time handed the hosts a 2-1 win.
On Sunday morning, PGMOL confirmed both England and Dan Cook, the assistant VAR for the Tottenham vs Liverpool match, have been stood down from their next matches.
England was due to be part of the officiating team at the City Ground on Sunday for Nottingham Forest’s game against Brentford – live on Sky Sports – but has been replaced by Craig Pawson.
Cook was set to be involved for Fulham’s home game against Chelsea on Monday – also live on Sky Sports – but Eddie Smart has taken his place.
Why didn’t the VAR team then stop the game?
Jurgen Klopp is not appeased when he learns of the PGMOL statement admitting a ‘significant human error’ led to Luis Diaz’s goal being incorrectly disallowed
It remains unknown when England and Cook first realised their mistake. Following England’s message of ‘check complete’ to on-field referee Simon Hooper, the game restarted less than a minute after Diaz had scored his goal with a free-kick to Tottenham.
With the game ‘live’ again, it is thought that the VAR team felt unable to intervene.
The IFAB rules on VAR state play cannot be brought back in a case like this. Rule 10 says: “If play has stopped and been restarted, the referee may not undertake a ‘review’ except for a case of mistaken identity or for a potential sending-off offence relating to violent conduct, spitting, biting or extremely offensive, insulting and/or abusive action(s)”.
“I’m pretty sure if you look at the ref’s face they were thinking of taking the game back and say it was a goal,” responded Sky Sports pundit Gary Neville on X.
“There is a moment where the ref looks sick! On the gantry (you can’t see this at home) the VAR screen was locked on the offside decision whilst the game went on. They knew pretty much straight away but for some reason didn’t go back or can’t through rules go back!”
Fellow Sky Sports pundit Jamie Carragher added: “It’s an horrendous mistake no matter how they did it. But if they knew just after the Spurs free-kick was taken that they’d made a huge mistake, it’s nonsense they can’t bring it back just because a free-kick has been taken.”
‘Incident creates a credibility crisis’
The Independent’s Miguel Delaney and The Daily Mirror’s Darren Lewis discuss VAR’s ‘credibility crisis’
Miguel Delaney, chief football writer at The Independent, speaking on Sky Sports News:
“It creates a credibility crisis. The entire premise of this system is about increasing accuracy but this just seems the complete opposite.
“What made it worse is the inevitable and understandable attempts at transparency since then have actually created more confusion. It feels like the only way to start navigating out of this crisis is to release the audio.
“What this boils down to is a lack of communication. They didn’t know what they were checking for.
“Another potential issue is the ambiguity of the language – ‘check complete’. Why not have it clear and say ‘it’s a goal’, or ‘no offside’?
“Ninety-nine per cent of the time, that’s fine, but in a case like this it shows how there is scope for completely needless error.”
