Howard Webb’s attempts to explain the refereeing and VAR failures surrounding Luis Diaz’s offside goal did not go down well with Liverpool fans.
Webb, head of refereeing PGMOL, appeared on Sky Sports’ Match Officials: Mic’d Up on Tuesday night to address some controversies.
Initially, the former Premier League side appeared to take a conservative line when discussing Liverpool’s 2-1 defeat at Tottenham and Arsenal’s 1-0 win at Man City.
But in the process, the 52-year-old made two important claims:
1) Referee Simon Hooper didn’t know about Diaz’s offside farce until AFTER the game
2) Referee Michael Oliver did not red card Mateo Kovacic for two nasty challenges in a row to avoid “negative influence”.
Webb’s analysis of Diaz’s disallowed goal – which led to major changes to the introduction of VAR in England – can be seen below:
These two statements are striking and for Liverpool fans, Webb’s attempt to explain Tottenham’s situation fell short of reality.
Of note is the claim that Hooper did not know VAR had wrongly ruled out a Reds goal until full-time in Spurs’ 2-1 win against a 9-man side. It was previously claimed that the referee didn’t know the extent of the foul until half-time, which certainly makes more sense.
But even then, after Diaz’s goal, there was a moment when Hooper seemed to be aware of the situation on the field with a face of gravity.
This is mostly speculation, as PGMOL only released about two minutes of audio between officials surrounding the decision.
In any case, supporters took to social media to take issue with Webb’s claims, including Arsenal 1-0 Man City:
Speaking to Sky Sports more than a week after the incident, Webb somehow made matters worse for the referees under his charge.
His claims not only called into question the integrity of the game, but also shed light on those officials who had not reported the unprecedented error before. If that were really the case, everyone involved would be gone by now.
