Howard Webb spoke about VAR’s decision to disallow Luis Diaz’s goal in Liverpool’s 2-1 Premier League defeat at Tottenham Hotspur in Match Officials: Mic’d Up.
Howard Webb has spoken publicly for the first time about VAR’s disgraceful decision to disallow Luis Diaz’s goal in Liverpool’s 2-1 Premier League defeat at Tottenham Hotspur.
Webb, head of Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL), joined former Liverpool striker Michael Owen on Sky Sports and TNT Sports’ Match Officials: Mic’d Up at Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on September 30. a great topic of conversation.
The game was tied at 0-0 when Luis Diaz put the ball into the net. However, the goal was disallowed by the county referees and their error was compounded when Stockley Park’s VAR team failed to intervene.
PGMOL released a statement after the match admitting that the goal should have been awarded and a “significant human error” had been made. It led to Liverpool – who lost the match 2-1 and had Curtis Jones and Diogo Jota sent off – to issue their own explosive statement before any audio of the incident was released.
And now Webb has had his say on the game officials: Mic’d Up. After the audience heard the audio, Webb said: “We took the unusual step of releasing the audio of this situation shortly after it happened. We wanted to show everyone what we realized very quickly was significant human error and slowness of concentration. We are. everyone disappointed that the VAR system did not intervene to correct the clear mistake we saw on the field when the goal was disallowed.
“No one is more disappointed than the authorities themselves. They are proud of their work, they want to have a positive impact on the game, but in this situation it was not. Of course, without VAR, this disallowed goal would still be a disallowed goal, but VAR is there so we can step in when we make the wrong decision on the pitch. So of course we are disappointed. Our job then was to try to find out what happened and what we can do to prevent something similar from happening in the future.”
Asked how the incident happened, Webb said: “At the start of the clip you hear Darren England’s VAR saying ‘checking for offside’. You can hear Darren going through the process quite quickly. Sometimes we are criticized for being slow. We focus on efficiency but never sacrifice accuracy. Darren can be heard trying to be fast. He lines up with (Cristian) Romero (Tottenham defender) and it shows a very clear picture and I think at that moment Darren loses sight of the decision on the pitch, sees a clear picture with Diaz on the side. and quickly “check completed”. He tells referee Simon Hooper “check is over”, Simon hears, assumes “check is over” for a field goal and play resumes.”
Webb continued: “One thing that has been pointed out is the need to replicate some of the really valuable communication protocols in VAR to prevent this type of thing from happening. We want the on-field referee to tell the VAR very clearly what the on-field decision is, and for the VAR to go back to the referee and admit that he heard it correctly. The VAR goes through the process of checking the situation and gives clear instructions to the replay operator to get the right angles, also talking to the Assistant VAR as they go through it, so that the Assistant VAR is another check and balance.
“Before communicating with the field, tell the AVAR what their intended direction of travel is and don’t just say ‘check done’ – because what do you do? Say ‘check done, destination confirmed’. In this case, ‘check done’ ‘.done, offside confirmed’ . This is another trigger for the officials working in the municipality that they are moving in the wrong direction. We have put many measures in place to ensure that the mistake we saw in an important game does not happen again.”
