The governing body of English football’s referees has apologised to Liverpool after officials wrongly ruled out a goal in their 2-1 defeat to Tottenham on Saturday.
The Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) admitted a “significant human error” was made when a goal by Liverpool’s Luis Diaz was disallowed because of offside in the Premier League game at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
At the time the score was 0-0, Tottenham went on to win 2-1 thanks to a Liverpool own goal in the dying seconds.
Match referee Simon Hooper, who sent off two Liverpool players, also ruled out Diaz’s 34th-minute effort.
The assistant’s offside flag was raised and a quick VAR check by Darren England at Stockley Park showed the Liverpool attacker was offside.
But still images of the incident appeared to show Tottenham defender Cristian Romero playing Diaz onside and Spurs took the lead two minutes later.
The referees’ body said in a statement: “PGMOL acknowledge a significant human error occurred during the first half of Tottenham Hotspur v Liverpool.
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“The goal by Luis Diaz was disallowed for offside by the on-field team of match officials.
“This was a clear and obvious factual error and should have resulted in the goal being awarded through VAR intervention, however, the VAR failed to intervene.
“PGMOL will conduct a full review into the circumstances which led to the error”, and “will immediately be contacting Liverpool at the conclusion of the fixture to acknowledge the error.”
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Cody Gakpo equalised before half-time, but Joel Matip’s last-gasp own-goal inflicted a first Premier League defeat of the season on Jurgen Klopp’s team.
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp, criticised the “unfair” and “crazy” decisions made by the officials.
He said: “That is not offside when you see it,” and dismissed the PGMOL apology, saying: “Who does that help? We won’t get points for it. We all thought that when VAR came in it would make things easier.
“The decision was made really quick for that decision. It changed the momentum of the game.”
