LONDON, Oct. 3 (PA Media/dpa/EP) –
The audio recording of the discussion between the referees of the match between Tottenham and Liverpool last weekend in the Premier League and marked by the erroneous annulment of a goal by Luis Díaz indicates that the VAR referee committed a failure of concentration .
The audio of the conversation between the VOR room and the field referee was made public this Tuesday after the controversy that arose after it became clear that the Colombian striker was in the correct position when he scored in the first half.
Liverpool requested a recording of what happened and the Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL), the association of referees, took the step this Tuesday of making the communication public. The body said that VAR referee Darren England “lost sight of the decision on the pitch due to a lapse of concentration and loss of attention.”
In the recording, England is heard saying “Check complete, check complete. Okay, perfect” before the replay operator and then an assistant question whether the correct decision has been made.
England realizes his mistake. “They’ve restarted the game. I can’t do anything, I can’t do anything,” he laments, while the replay operator makes repeated calls to delay the game. England then utters another expletive before he ends the tape, the end of an incident after which the PGMOL admitted immediately after the match that a “significant human error” had occurred.
Liverpool complained bitterly that sporting integrity had been “undermined”, while issuing a statement the following day indicating that they would explore their options given the “clear need for a resolution”.
“After the referees disallowed the goal for offside, the checking phase and process began, which the VAR carried out correctly. In a lapse of concentration and loss of attention at that moment, the VAR lost sight of the goal. decision made on the field of play and incorrectly communicated ‘check completed’, thus inadvertently confirming the decision made on the field of play. He did so without dialogue with the AVAR (assistant VAR),” the PMGOL said in a statement.
The organization indicated that “the match resumed immediately” and that “after a few seconds, the replay operator and then the AVAR consulted the VAR about the result of the check and asked him to review the image that had been created, noting that the original decision on the field had been offside. “But this was not communicated to the field team at any time during the game,” he added.
“The VAR team then considered whether the match could be stopped at that point, but the VAR and AVAR concluded that the VAR protocol within the laws of the game did not allow that to happen, and decided that it was not possible to intervene, as the game had resumed,” he recalled.