Questions raised as VAR officials who made Liverpool error took charge of UAE game just days before
Fresh questions have been raised about the officials for Tottenham vs Liverpool following the controversy during the Premier League fixture.
VAR took centre stage as Spurs dramatically beat Liverpoo
2-1 at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium on Saturday.
The visitors were reduced to 10 men after match referee Simon Hooper reviewed the VAR monitor to send off Curtis Jones following his challenge on Yves Bissouma, who was ruthlessly trolled by fans for what he did after the final whistle.
If that wasn’t enough to cause outrage, VAR also inexplicably denied Liverpool a goal when Mohamed Salah picked out Luis Diaz.
It has now emerged that VAR officials Darren England and Dan Cook took charge of a game between Al Ain and Sharjah in the UAE Pro League on Thursday, according to the Independent.
They made a six-hour flight from the United Arab Emirates the day before taking charge of Spurs vs Liverpool.
The officiating team of Michael Oliver, England and Cook only arrived back on Friday following their six-hour journey from UAE to London, raising questions over possible fatigue.
England and Cook have since been dropped for upcoming fixtures.
And shortly after the conclusion of Spurs vs Liverpool, PGMOL released a statement where they admitted Diaz’s strike was incorrectly ruled out, citing a ‘significant human error’.
The statement read: “PGMOL acknowledge a significant human error occurred during the first half of Tottenham Hotspur v Liverpool.
“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.
“PGMOL will immediately be contacting Liverpool at the conclusion of the fixture to acknowledge the error.”
SPORTbible are on WhatsApp! We’ve launched a dedicated news channel to send you the latest news, features and plenty more directly on WhatsApp and all you need to do to sign up is click through to our one-way broadcast channel here HERE for ‘SPORTbible News’ to appear in the ‘Updates’ tab on your WhatsApp.
