The VAR officials who made a major error in Liverpool’s Premier League defeat at Tottenham on Saturday have been stood down from duty for a second round of fixtures.
Referees Darren England and Dan Cook failed to overturn Luis Diaz’s wrongly disallowed goal, after not realising that on-field referee Simon Hooper and his assistant officials had initially ruled the goal out for offside.
England and Cook were subsequently replaced from Sunday’s match between Nottingham Forest and Brentford and the game between Chelsea and Fulham on Monday night, and neither official was issued a Premier League fixture this weekend.
Referee Hooper will be the lead VAR for Everton’s match against Bournemouth on Saturday, after he served as the fourth official for Chelsea’s victory over Fulham in Monday’s west London derby.
It comes as Liverpool made a formal request to receive the audio recording between the VAR officials in the 2-1 defeat at Tottenham, after the Anfield club released an unprecedented statement saying they would “explore a range of options” in response to the error.
The referees’ body PGMOL admitted after the match that a “significant human error” had been made and referees’ chief Howard Webb spoke to Liverpool after the match and offered an apology.
It later emerged that England and Cook had taken charge of a match in the United Arab Emirates in midweek and had only made the six-hour return flight back to London the day before Liverpool’s match at Tottenham.
An approach from the UAE Pro League been made to the Football Association and was subsequently approved by PGMOL chief Webb, with it not affecting their availability to be selected for Premier League fixtures.
Liverpool have called for a full review into the events and are pushing for the audio file of the incident to be released by the Premier League and PGMOL. The Independent was there had discussions over whether to publish the audio during Sky Sports’ Monday Night Football broadcast, but that did not happen.
“Any and all outcomes should be established only by the review and with full transparency,” Liverpool’s statement read. “This is vital for the reliability of future decision making as it applies to all clubs with learnings being used to make improvements to processes in order to ensure this kind of situation cannot occur again.
“In the meantime, we will explore the range of options available, given the clear need for escalation and resolution.”
