The Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) recently came clean about a critical error they made during the match between Liverpool and Tottenham Hotspur on Saturday. Notably, Liverpool’s Luis Diaz had a goal erroneously disallowed. That goal could have changed the course of the game and gave the Spurs the victory in the closing seconds.
They admitted this after the nine-man Reds squad suffered a 2-1 loss, as the issue began to simmer at a crucial juncture in the game when the score was tied at 1-1. The Reds were dominating despite being down a player when Diaz’s goal was disallowed. Due to a hurried VAR judgement that skipped the usual showing of offside line visuals.
Their official statement about those decisions read as follows, “PGMOL acknowledge a significant human error occurred during the first half of Tottenham Hotspur v Liverpool. The on-field team of match officials disallowed Luis Diaz’s goal for offside, which constituted a clear and obvious factual error. However, VAR failed to intervene and award the goal.
The statement further said that, “PGMOL will conduct a full review into the circumstances which led to the error. PGMOL will immediately be contacting Liverpool at the conclusion of the fixture to acknowledge the error.”
The match’s problems for Liverpool did not stop with Diaz’s goal being ruled out. The Reds lost the game because to a last-second own goal through Joel Matip. They also had Curtis Jones as well as Diogo Jota sent off.
That is not offside when you see it: Jurgen Klopp
During a post-game interview with Sky Sports, manager Jurgen Klopp vented his displeasure, saying that the Tottenham loss occurred under “the most unfair circumstances.”
The German Manager said, “That is not offside when you see it. The ball is between Mo [Salah]’s legs, they drew the line wrong and didn’t judge the moment when Mo passed the ball right.”
