Liverpool have increased pressure on the referees’ body, Professional Game Match Officials Ltd (PGMOL), to be fully transparent over their monumental failure at Tottenham on Saturday by making a formal request for audio of the decision to disallow Luis Díaz’s goal to be released.
PGMOL and its chief refereeing officer, Howard Webb, are under intense scrutiny following the shambles at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium when the VAR, Darren England, and assistant VAR, Dan Cook, failed to overturn an incorrect on-pitch decision to disallow Díaz’s goal for offside. Both officials were quickly stood down from duties on Sunday and Monday having wrongly believed the goal had been awarded by the referee, Simon Hooper, when confirming their check was complete.
In a strongly worded statement on Sunday, Liverpool criticized PGMOL’s assessment, which it blamed on “significant human error”, and also called for a comprehensive and fully transparent review of the entire process. The club are concerned about Webb’s England team and Cook being allowed to return home from duty in the United Arab Emirates the day before their first defeat of the season.
[Ken Early:
We don’t need to stick to this nonsense – abolish VAR. ]
The club has made a formal request to PGMOL to provide audio recordings from the VAR room at Stockley Park, in order to understand the breakdown in communication that led to perhaps the biggest failure in VAR history to date. I confirmed it. Mr Webb has contacted Anfield officials following Saturday’s controversy, but PGMOL has yet to respond to the points raised in Liverpool’s statement or to requests to hear audio recordings.
