Officials involved in Liverpool VAR ‘error’ might be sacked

The two match officials stood down from duty following Saturday’s incident that saw Liverpool wrongly denied a goal will not be involved in this weekend’s Premier League fixtures.

Darren England and Dan Cook were VAR and assistant VAR respectively when a “significant human error” resulted in Luis Diaz’s effort incorrectly being disallowed for offside in the Reds’ 2-1 loss at Tottenham.

Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) on Sunday announced the pair had been replaced for their next matches – England was due to be fourth official that day at Nottingham Forest v Brentford, with Cook to be assistant referee for Monday’s Fulham-Chelsea clash, but Craig Pawson and Eddie Smart stepped in.

And on Tuesday, England and Cook did not feature as the Premier League released its list of officials for match week eight this Saturday and Sunday.
Simon Hooper, the on-field referee for the Tottenham-Liverpool contest and fourth official for the subsequent Fulham game, is to be VAR when Everton host Bournemouth on Saturday.

After Diaz’s 34th-minute effort at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, when the score was 0-0, was disallowed PGMOL put out a statement saying “a significant human error occurred” and that a goal should have been given but “the VAR failed to intervene”.

Liverpool have formally requested the audio from PGMOL of the conversation between Hooper and England related to the incident.

Liverpool issued a statement on Sunday night saying they would “explore the range of options available given the clear need for escalation and resolution”.

Some Celtic fans may have been scratching their heads a little bit during the Tottenham Hotspur vs Liverpool game on Saturday.

As you’ll no doubt have seen, heard or read, there was a huge moment of controversy in the Premier League fixture as Ange Postecoglou’s side got the better of Jürgen Klopp’s Reds.

The Incident in question was a first-half goal by Liverpool attacker Luis Diaz that was ruled out incorrectly for offside. VAR checked the goal very quickly and decided that Diaz had been offside, but television pictures showed him clearly onside.

Referees’ body PGMOL were forced to address the incident afterwards. They cited a “significant human error” as a reason for things going so badly wrong. (BBC)

Things have escalated since then. Liverpool released a statement acknowledging the “PGMOL’s admission of their failures” before saying they would “explore the range of options available, given the clear need for escalation and resolution”.

While the Anfield side were harshly treated, Celtic supporters will know more than anyone how these human errors can happen with VAR, and you just need to suck it up. Take our win over Motherwell last season as the perfect example. It’s something we spoke about in the lead-up to our Fir Park visit at the weekend.

Our former winger Jota netted a good goal that night, before he was adjudged to have been offside. The SFA’s VAR took an age to look at the incident before coming to the conclusion that the Portuguese star had been offside.
However, the footage then appeared to show Jota onside, a bit like Diaz. The camera angle was inconclusive. It was taken from the Hoops half of the pitch due to an issue at the Motherwell end. You can view the incident from 1:45 in the official match highlights.

Celtic were unsurprisingly not happy with events and wrote to the SFA seeking clarification. The governing body were forced to release a ‘Referee Operations Statement’.

“Referee Operations can confirm that during a VAR review at Motherwell vs Celtic, the footage from the relevant 18-yard line camera did not capture an appropriate view of the incident,” it read.

“While the broadcast footage was only able to show a wider camera angle for viewers, Hawk-Eye technology is designed to calibrate an accurate offside decision from either of the two 18-yard line camera positions, with the subsequent VAR review determining that the Celtic player had received the ball in an offside position.

“We have provided feedback to the host broadcaster on the incident as part of our regular review of the system operation.” (SFA)
So no admission of guilt there from the SFA, unlike the PGMOL and Liverpool. Yet Celtic just got back on with things and put together a treble-winning campaign.

Liverpool should be glad they even got an admission of any sort of error, a step further than the SFA went with us. Goodness only knows how they would have reacted to the explanation Celtic got.