The Professional Game Match Officials Board (PGMOL) have released the VAR transcript for the decision to rule out Liverpool Luis Diaz’s goal against Tottenham. This is the latest, and probably the worst decision that the referees have taken in a long list of terrible decisions since the introduction of VAR.
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp has demanded a replay in response to the wrong decision, which has been deemed as a ‘human error’ and led to the Reds losing to Spurs in their Premier League fixture.
PGMOL release transcript of Luis Diaz VAR goal check
VAR: ‘And stop. Check complete, check complete. That’s fine, perfect.’
Assistant referee 1: ‘Playing.’
Referee: ‘Cheers mate.’
VAR: ‘Thank you mate.’
Referee: ‘Well done boys, good process.’
Replay operator: ‘Wait, wait, wait, wait. The on-field decision was offside.. Are you happy with this?’
Assistant VAR (Dan Cook): ‘Yeah.’
Replay operator: ‘Are you happy with this?’
Assistant VAR: ‘Offside, goal, yeah. That’s wrong that, Daz.’
VAR: ‘What?’
Replay operator: ‘On-field decision was offside. Are you happy with this image? Yeah, it is onside. The image that we gave them is onside.’
Assistant VAR: ‘He’s playing him, he’s gone offside.
VAR: ‘Oh f***’
Replay operator: ‘Delay, delay. Oli (Kohout, PGMOL Hub Ops) saying to delay, Oli’s saying to delay.’
VAR: ‘Pardon?’
Replay operator: ‘Oli’s calling in to say delay the game. The decision is onside.’
VAR: ‘Can’t do anything.’
Replay operator: Oli’s saying to delay, Oli’s saying to delay.’
VAR: ‘Oli?’
Fourth official: ‘Yeah.’
Replay operator: ‘Delay the game, to delay the game? Stop the game.’
VAR: ‘They’ve started the game. Can’t do anything, can’t do anything.’
Assistant VAR: ‘Yeah they’ve restarted. Yeah. No.’
VAR: ‘I can’t do anything. I can’t do anything. F***.’
The PGMOL have not punished CEO Howard Webb for the shambolic standard of refereeing in the Premier League, and he plans to travel to the Netherlands to get away from the criticism at this point.
Unlike countries like Germany and Italy where VAR has been used to get vital decisions right most of the time, the quality of refereeing in England has received constant criticism. And fans will be hopeful that officials can learn from this massive slip and undergo further VAR training to improve the quality of matches.
