Before deciding on its next course of action in the wake of the Saturday offside dispute against Tottenham, Liverpool is still gathering more information on the investigation.
Due to a misunderstanding between VAR Darren England and on-field referee Simon Hooper, the club had a Luis Diaz goal disallowed in north London. The Reds ultimately suffered a 2-1 loss in the Premier League game. The match was scoreless at the time of the incident.
On Sunday evening, Liverpool released a statement in which they stated that they will “explore the range of options available given the clear need for escalation and resolution.”
Since then, much attention has been paid to the specifics of how the club wants the situation to develop and be addressed. But PA believes that at this point, the word “explore” in the statement is crucial from the standpoint of Liverpool.
Liverpool will proceed for further actions after gathering more details
They want more information on the specifics of the incident review that the referees’ organisation Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) has pledged to conduct. Liverpool are aware that, unlike in the event of contesting a red card, there is no defined protocol or playbook for handling this particular combination of circumstances.
In a statement released on Saturday night, PGMOL admitted that a “significant error” had taken place. The PA news agency says that while England followed the necessary protocol in drawing lines, he lost focus and believed the first onfield ruling had been onside. Hooper and his assistants had given offside against Diaz on the pitch.
As a result, he gave Hooper a “check complete” message rather than notifying him of an intervention and awarding the goal. Play had already resumed when the officials noticed that they had made a mistake. According to VAR regulations, once that has happened, there is no turning back to review a judgement.
Dan Cook, England’s assistant VAR at Tottenham, was not in place for Monday night’s encounter between Fulham and Chelsea. England served as the fourth official for the Sunday contest between Nottingham Forest and Brentford. Tuesday morning at 10am, the referee and VAR assignments for the upcoming weekend’s games are scheduled to be revealed.
There were requests for the communication between England and Hooper to be made public as a result of the controversy surrounding the Diaz goal. Possibly including the audio in the upcoming episode of “Match Officials Mic’d Up.” According to PGMOL, the programme will air on Monday.
The match referees frequently oversee domestic matches abroad
England and Cook returned to the UK on Friday morning. They were members of a team of officials who monitored a game between Sharjah and Al Ain in the United Arab Emirates on Thursday.
The Football Association receives requests from English officials to oversee domestic matches abroad. The FA and PGMOL mutually approve official travel requests.
The duties of officials are calibrated to take into account any outside engagements throughout the week. Similar to players who participate in Europa League games on a Thursday do not return to local competition until Sunday.
For instance, Michael Oliver officiated the game in the United Arab Emirates the previous week. He also officiated on Saturday as a fourth official and officiated again on Sunday at Forest.
The travel to the UAE was also not exceptional. It was the seventh occasion in the past ten months that officials have presided over domestic games abroad. Tom Bramall and Andy Madley guided teams to Japan in January and early July, respectively. Oliver supervised a game in Saudi Arabia in April. Craig Pawson travelled to Greece in May.
Additionally, English officials have to frequently referee matches involving the national team and clubs in international events.
Erik Ten Hag has full trust in the referees
Liverpool claimed the incident had compromised sports integrity. But Manchester United manager Erik ten Hag remarked on Monday that he still had full “trust” in referees. Ten hag said
“Well, I’m not so often giving comment on refereeing because they do what they have to do. Of course, the standard has to be high and it’s a part of the game.”
The Dutchman further added
“Of course, you can expect, we can expect, teams can expect, the fans can all expect, that it has to be a high standard – so it should be because it’s Premier League. But I think and I’m sure they do what they can. They are very professional, so they will give their best and I trust them.”
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