'They knew straight away' - Neville makes incredible Liverpool VAR revelation
Robin Bairner
- Updated: 1 Oct 2023 08:21 BST
- 4 min read
Gary Neville has revealed that the match officials during Liverpool's 2-1 loss to Tottenham were aware of the mistake they made in disallowing a Luis Diaz own goal in the first half of the encounter.
The incident has caused uproar, with Reds fans understandably incensed that a legitimate goal was chalked off despite the use of technology.
VAR has been brought in to address any instances of major decisions being wrong because of ‘clear and obvious errors’, yet in this instance, Diaz’s equalising strike was chopped off, despite video footage soon showing that the player had been clearly onside.
Neville has not revealed that the match officials would have been aware of the problem.
Taking to X, formerly Twitter, he posted: "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!!"
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PGMOL's statement
Refereeing body PGMOL quickly issued a statement admitting the error in the aftermath of the encounter.
“PGMOL acknowledge significant human error,” it stated. “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.”
It was later revealed that the confusion was caused by VAR official Darren England wrongly believing the on-field decision had been that the goal stood. As such, he confirmed match referee Simon Hooper's call, which was instead that there had been an offside.
Neville, who was commentating on the match for Sky Sports, offered an instant reaction to the mess.
“At the time, I thought – we get VAR up on the commentary box before anyone else does – and I thought, that’s onside. And then all of a sudden, you just hear in your ear, check over.,” he said.
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“We get a preview of the pictures in the gantry and we get the actual commentary from the VAR officials to the referee.
“They went: ‘Check complete.’ And it was like what? No lines, it was so quick…
“And then you’ve slowed it down at half-time. It was too quick and something was obviously wrong. That is unbelievable – that is a bad one.
“I mean they said significant, that is very significant. There’s a couple in the last few weeks that I haven’t thought haven’t been right and I’ve been asking: ‘Have we got the right cameras at these stadiums?’ We never seem to be in line anymore!”
It remains to be seen what recourse there will be for Liverpool after a result that leaves them fourth in the Premier League table.
