Sky Sports have revealed that the officials on the pitch during Liverpool’s controversial 2-1 defeat to Tottenham only knew they’d made a mistake disallowing Luis Diaz’s goal at half-time, while the blundering VAR operators knew virtually straight away..
A miscommunication between referee Simon Hooper and VAR Darren England saw Diaz’s goal chalked off on Saturday, despite the Reds winger being onside before smashing the ball past Tottenham goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario. That’s because England in the VAR hub at Stockley Park was under the impression that the on-field decision was to give a goal.
Once he’d drew a 2D line in order to ensure that Diaz was onside, he told Hooper “check complete” and the game continued – but still at 0-0. England and colleague Dan Cook felt that it wasn’t in the VAR protocol to stop the game once again after it’d restarted and therefore the on-field officials weren’t aware of their error until the interval.
Liverpool’s stinging statement could force two major changes to how VAR operates
Liverpool have already contacted the
PGMOL asking to have access to the audio of Hooper and England’s conversation, but Reds legend Jamie Carragher is still furious about the “horrendous mistake.” Carragher declared on Monday Night Football : “I don’t think the feeling about VAR has been lower, it’s at crisis point.
“It’s not just this decision it’s on the back of other incidents this season, like the Wolves one with Manchester United. I don’t want to pile into the officials or [PGMOL chief] Howard Webb, they must feel awful. I’m not into the conspiracy theories – no one gains anything from this. We’ve all made mistakes. But this is a horrendous mistake, unprecedented, you can’t quite believe the explanation that has been given.”
Have your say! How should the PGMOL react to the error? Join the debate in the comments section.
Liverpool issued a statement on Sunday evening expressing their fury at the incident, despite the PGMOL acknowledging that there was a “significance human error” within an hour of full-time. “We fully accept the pressures that match officials work under but these pressures are supposed to be alleviated, not exacerbated, by the existence and implementation of VAR,” they said.
“It is therefore unsatisfactory that sufficient time was not afforded to allow the correct decision to be made and that there was no subsequent intervention. That such failings have already been categorised as “significant human error” is also unacceptable. Any and all outcomes should be established only by the review and with full transparency.
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“This is vital for the reliability of future decision-making as it applies to all clubs with learnings being used to make improvements to processes in order to ensure this kind of situation cannot occur again. In the meantime, we will explore the range of options available, given the clear need for escalation and resolution.”
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