Video Assistant Referees (VARs)
- VAR Darren England and assistant Dan Cook were unavailable
- PGMOL admits Liverpool were wrongly denied a goal at Spurs
The video assistant referee and VAR assistant guilty of the flagrant error that prevented Liverpool from scoring the first goal in Saturday’s 2-1 defeat to Tottenham Hotspur have been banned from games this week , marking another humiliating weekend for Professional Game Match Officials Ltd (PGMOL).
Darren England, the VAR, and Dan Cook, the AVAR, have been relieved of their duties at Nottingham Forest v Brentford on Sunday and Fulham v Chelsea on Monday respectively. England were to be the fourth official at the City Ground and Cook was to be the assistant referee at Craven Cottage.
‘A bit strange’: Liverpool’s Klopp stunned by Díaz’s disallowed goal against Spurs
Luis Díaz thought he had scored Tottenham’s opening goal, but then the flag was raised. But instead of overruling the on-field decision, England’s VAR called out “review complete” because it had failed to realize the goal had been disallowed and instead thought it had been given by referee Simon Hooper. PGMOL released a statement exposing a “significant human error”, namely England’s lack of concentration.
Jurgen Klopp was stunned by the disallowed goal but gave England some slack. “I’m pretty sure whoever made that decision didn’t do it on purpose,” the Liverpool coach said after his team’s first defeat of the season. “It didn’t take us very long to come to this conclusion. This is a bit strange, but someone else has to explain it.”
Luis Díaz scores the goal for Liverpool, which was incorrectly ruled for offside despite the efforts of Tottenham’s Pedro Porro. Photo: Marc Atkins/Getty Images
As with all goals, the VAR checks every element of the goal to ensure it is correct. The lines were drawn and the process was followed correctly. However, England lost focus on the initial on-field decision. PGMOL admitted that the decision to exclude Díaz’s 34th-minute goal was a “clear and obvious factual error”.
The error is another humiliating episode in a difficult season for PGMOL and the implementation of VAR. The first weekend of the season was marred by the referees’ failure to award Wolves an injury-time penalty at Manchester United, resulting in Hooper, who was also the referee that day, Michael Salisbury, the VAR, and Richard West, the AVAR, were taken off duty for the following game round.
Howard Webb, in his second season as chief referee at PGMOL, has emphasized the need for referees to be accountable for their decisions in order to make the organization and its operations more transparent and understandable. However, this latest mistake will further test the credibility of everyone involved. Speaking on Sky Sports after the game on Saturday, Gary Neville said of Díaz’s decision: “It’s unbelievable. This is bad. said [in the statement], ‘significant’. This is very significant.”
Craig Pawson will take over England duties at Forest on Sunday, while Eddie Smart will replace Cook as assistant referee at Craven Cottage. It remains to be seen whether England or Cook will be selected for next weekend’s games. The appointments will be announced to officials on Tuesday.
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