The Premier League has new rules in place as a result of the fallout from the match versus Tottenham.
The VAR error that lost Liverpool a goal against Tottenham has captivated the football world, but it has since come to light that the off-field referee in the game also made a significant error.
An error in judgement caused a Luis Diaz goal for Liverpool to be incorrectly disallowed for offside at Tottenham on Saturday due to a miscommunication between VAR Darren England and referee Simon Hooper.
With England and his assistant being banned from their responsibilities as a result of their error, that has ignited a heated discussion about the Premier League’s usage of camera technology.
The assessment of the red card issued to Diogo Jota now raises questions about whether on-field referee Hooper also committed a serious error during the match.
The Premier League’s Independent Key Match Incidents Panel have stated Jota should not have been awarded a second yellow card for his attack on Tottenham’s Destiny Udogie, but Liverpool have no right to dispute this judgement.
Three former players and coaches, as well as a representative from the Premier League and the Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL), make up the group that evaluates refereeing decisions.
“Diogo Jota got two yellow cards for not touching a player once, that’s unprecedented as well I would say,” said Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp on the sending off.
“We can take a lot out of this game and took a lot out of this game. We saw a wonderful team fighting against all odds.
“I don’t know how it happened that we ended up with eight cards (bookings) altogether. It’s a strange one.”
The Premier League will begin using the new VAR rules this weekend as a result of the issue surrounding Liverpool.
When the audio of the incident against Tottenham was made public on Tuesday, the organisation that represents referees, PGMOL, said that it will create a new VAR communication protocol in an effort to prevent future occurrences of the same errors.
The PA news agency is aware that the new policy will go into effect immediately.
The policy, according to PGMOL, would “improve the clarity of communication between the referee and the VAR team in relation to on-field decisions.”
Prior to informing the on-field officials of their final determination, VARs will now additionally validate the results of the checking procedure with the assistant VAR.
When he said “check complete,” England assumed he had backed the on-field officials’ decision to resume play with a free kick because they had been incorrectly under the impression that Diaz was onside.
The judgement could not be reviewed by the VARs under the current guidelines after play had resumed.
The Premier League is reportedly not willing to entertain the request for a repeat made by Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp on Wednesday.
However, the league did issue a statement on Tuesday claiming that the Diaz incident had shown “systemic weaknesses” in the VAR procedure and that a larger assessment will be conducted “to seek consistently higher standards of VAR performance”.
The policy permitting English officials to cover domestic league matches abroad will also be reviewed by PGMOL and the Football Association.
On September 28, England and his assistant Daniel Cook were a part of a team of officials who oversaw a game in the United Arab Emirates. They returned to the UK the next morning.