Refs Union comes clean on Liverpool's rejected goal

01 October 2023

• They also announced that they will contact Liverpool club to acknowledge the mistake.

The Union of Match Officials in Great Britain (PGMOL) has issued a statement admitting that serious errors occurred during the first half of the match between Tottenham and Liverpool at Tottenham's Stadium on Saturday evening.

In a statement issued on Saturday evening, PGMOL admitted that disallowing Luis Diaz's goal for offside in the 34th minute of the match was a clear error.

The referees' association agreed that the Colombian striker's goal should have been awarded after a VAR review for possible offside, which was not done.

"Luis Diaz's goal was disallowed for offside by one of the match officials on the field. This was a clear and genuine error and should have resulted in the goal being awarded via VAR intervention. However, VAR failed to intervene," said the PGMOL statement.

The refs' union promised to conduct a full review of the circumstances that led to the errors and take necessary steps afterward.

They also announced that they would contact the Liverpool club to acknowledge the mistake. "PGMOL will immediately contact Liverpool at the end of the match to acknowledge the wrongdoing," the statement said.

While talking about PGMOL's statement after the match was over, Liverpool coach Jurgen Klopp noted that the action does not help at all as they would not get any points after it.

"We had a similar situation in the Man United game, did Liverpool get points for that? No. I believe we won't get points for that either. It doesn't help," Klopp said.

He added, "No one expects 100% correct decisions on the pitch. But I think we all thought that when VAR comes in, it can make things easier. I don't know why people and VAR put the match under pressure.

The decision was made very quickly, I can say about that. I hope whoever did that, whoever made the decision, he didn't do it on purpose. That's strange but someone else has to give an explanation. I have nothing to say," Liverpool lost to Tottenham 2-1 on Saturday evening after two of their players were sent off during the match. Tottenham's winning goal came in extra time after defender Joel Matip scored.