sport news REVEALED: Luis Diaz's opener was incorrectly disallowed after VAR official ... trends now
Luis Diaz's opening goal for Liverpool against Tottenham was disallowed after a misunderstanding between the VAR official and the referee.
PGMOL admitted that Luis Diaz's strike in the first-half against Tottenham was incorrectly ruled out for offside.
Liverpool ultimately lost 2-1 to Ange Postecoglou's side, with Joel Matip scoring a late own goal after both Curtis Jones and Diogo Jota were sent off for the Reds.
The decision to disallow Diaz's goal for Liverpool has left many baffled, with VAR appearing to stick with the on-field decision to disallow the goal - despite the Colombian attacker clearly appearing to be onside.
It appears though that the mistake was made following a misunderstanding between the on-field officials and those on VAR.
PGMOL has acknowledged that Luis Diaz's goal against Tottenham was incorrectly ruled out
Diaz thought he had fired home to put Liverpool ahead in the first half only to see the flag raised by the assistant referee
The goal was ruled out despite replays clearing showing Diaz was being played onside by Cristian Romero
Darren England was the man tasked with VAR duties for the match, with Dan Cook acting as assistant VAR.
After the on-field decisions disallowed Diaz's strike, England checked for offside thinking that the on-field decision was to award the goal.
Viewers at home felt that the check was unusually quick. The quick check though was because England felt that Diaz was clearly onside, and told the referee 'check complete'.
In doing so, he effectively told referee Simon Hooper that the on-field call was the correct one.
Tottenham then took a free-kick for offside, which at that point - when the error would have been noticed - it is said to be too late to pull play back.
Gary Neville, who was doing commentary for Sky Sports, has tweeted this evening that he thought that the referee looked like he wanted to take the game back and award a goal.
He wrote on X: 'I’m pretty sure if you look at the refs face they were thinking of taking the game back and say it was a goal. There is a moment where the ref looks sick!
'On the gantry (you can’t see this at home) the VAR screen was locked on the offside decision whilst the game went on. They knew pretty much straight away but for some reason didn’t go back or can’t through rules go back!!
beIN Sports drew their own lines on their broadcast to show how the goal should have stood
PGMOL in their statement had acknowledged that a 'significant human error' had been made.
The statement read: 'PGMOL acknowledge a significant human error occurred during the first half of Tottenham Hotspur v Liverpool.
'The goal but 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.
'PGMOL will immediately be contacting Liverpool at the conclusion of the fixture to acknowledge the error.'
The goal came about when Liverpool countered just moments after Jones was sent off. Mohamed Salah played through Diaz, who slotted home, but the goal was immediately flagged offside.
Replays seemed to show the forward was onside and that has now been confirmed by the refereeing body.
Neville slammed the decision on Sky Sports, saying: 'We have the lines on the pitch. These groundspeople never get a line wrong. They are so accurate. Look at the lines on the pitch.
