Liverpool’s game against Spurs last Saturday night has dominated the sports headlines since – for all the wrong reasons. Jürgen Klopp’s side finished the game with nine men as Curtis Jones and Diogo Jota were sent off. A late Joël Matip own goal settled the game 2-1 in Tottenham’s favour after the North London side struggled to break down a brave Reds defence.
After a strongly worded statement by Liverpool, PGMOL released audio yesterday of the most controversial incident in the game. Despite quickly proving Luis Díaz’s superb strike was onside, VAR official Darren England said, ‘Check complete’, not realising the on-pitch linesman had ruled the goal out. This led to play being restarted and the goal not standing.
On the latest episode of our Journo Insight show, we asked experienced LFC reporter Neil Jones for his thoughts on the ‘de-VAR-cle’.
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Neil said:
“What do they want? I think what they want is that this doesn’t just become another episode in the litany of, ‘Oh, got that wrong. Sorry!’ And move on.
“What was said? Why was it said or why was it not said? Is that protocol? Is that a problem with the protocol of the language that referees are told to use? Or is it that these referees, these officials are not following protocol or going off-message?
“The other thing that Liverpool are trying to do is just make sure that it doesn’t get brushed. This weekend there will be someone else. It might be Crystal Palace. It might be Everton. It might be Luton. There will be these issues and it’ll get brushed under the carpet.
“Liverpool’s statement is ensuring… it’ll be remembered because it was such a grave miscommunication error. When something like that happens, really it needs to be kept in the spotlight, because people need to improve.
“The language that the referees are supposed to use to each other lends itself to this situation happening, allows this situation to happen. So that’s not a human error. You’ve left too much vagueness in the script that the referees have to follow – this ‘check complete’ stuff.
“This idea that once the game’s restarted it’s like this sacred law, ‘Oh, you can’t stop the game now, because Spurs have taken a free kick. Yeah, you can. You could have left that in the referee’s hands. He might have had the chance to say, ‘Do you know what, I’m going to take control of this.’
“When I watched that ‘match officials mic’d up’ show, my thing was – it’s too much jargon. It’s frantic and it’s jargon. The language is too complicated, things need to be, ‘We’re gonna check whether it’s a handball. We’re going to check whether it’s offside.’
“There’s been this drive that it takes too long. That one felt that it was almost done with that in mind – ‘Don’t take too long, that’s fine.’”
‘VAR 2.0’ – FIFA Referee Open To Audio ‘Clarity’ Following Liverpool Controversy
Redmen Reacts
After a heroic display from Jürgen’s nine men, heartbreak quickly turned to anger following PGMOL’s confirmation that a ‘significant human error’ had taken place. Many were left in disbelief at the official explanation, with conspiracy theories filling the vacuum left by the lack of audio evidence. The clip released yesterday backs up the official version of events but has led to a spotlight being shone in on the insular world of Premier League match officials. Is it correct that some of the world’s best-paid referees and VAR operators are allowed to ply their trade on a different continent just 48 hours before a big Premier League game? This will no doubt be looked at following this latest VAR furore.
With Liverpool’s statement having led to accusations of unnecessary escalation and self-interest, hopefully, the naysayers can be silenced if pressure from the club leads to improvements in the implementation of VAR – given that it is likely ‘here to stay’. Never again will a VAR official say ‘check complete’ without actually explicitly referring to what they are checking!
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