PGMOL has admitted that Luis Diaz’s first-half goal against Tottenham was wrongly disallowed for offside.
Liverpool lost 2-1 to Ange Postecoglou’s side on Saturday evening after Joel Matip’s late own goal gave the home side three points after the Reds saw both Curtis Jones and Diogo Jota sent off.
Liverpool were against it for most of the game due to the layoffs, but almost held on to a point in north London with nine men.
They kept Tottenham behind just before half-time when Cody Gakpo struck to cancel out Son Heung-min’s opener, and many thought Diaz’s finish with the score at 0-0 was bizarrely ruled out for offside, even after a VAR check.
That has now been acknowledged by the refereeing body in their latest statement in a series of apologies.
PGMOL has acknowledged that Luis Diaz’s goal against Tottenham was wrongly disallowed
Diaz thought he had shot to give Liverpool the lead in the first half, but saw the flag raised by the assistant referee
The goal was disallowed despite replays showing Diaz being played onside by Cristian Romero
“PGMOL acknowledges that significant human error occurred during Tottenham Hotspur’s first half against Liverpool,” the statement began.
‘The goal, but Luis Diaz was disallowed for offside by the team of match officials on the pitch. This was a clear factual error and should have resulted in the goal being awarded via VAR intervention, but VAR did not intervene.
“PGMOL will conduct a full investigation into the circumstances leading to the error.
‘PGMOL will immediately contact Liverpool at the end of the match to acknowledge the error.’
Darren England was the man in charge of VAR duties for the match, with Dan Cook acting as assistant VAR.
The goal came when Liverpool countered shortly after Jones was sent off. Mohamed Salah played through Diaz, who shot in, but the goal was immediately ruled offside.
Replays appeared to show that the attacker was onside and that has now been confirmed by the refereeing organization.
Gary Neville slammed the decision on Sky Sports, saying: ‘We have the lines on the pitch. These terrain people never get it wrong. They are so accurate. Look at the lines on the field.
beIN Sports drew its own lines in their broadcast to show how the goal should have been scored
Spurs eventually won the match when Joel Matip scored an own goal deep into stoppage time
Gary Neville slammed the decision as being made ‘too quickly’ when speaking to Sky Sports
‘By the way, I defended VAR offside. There are a few that I thought were wrong. For me, there it is… just no. It all happened too fast. It went so fast. It wasn’t right. At that point I thought, okay, let’s move on.
“That’s clearly Romero’s foot and Diaz’s shoulder. There are only two players in shot. It’s almost now: what are they doing? They choose the wrong cameras to run the lines from the wrong angles. It’s just weird! Something doesn’t feel right.’
Fellow Sky pundit Jamie Carragher wrote on X: ‘Shocking mistake, but this has nothing to do with drawing lines. The VAR missed the Spurs centre-back and clearly went ahead of Diaz’s full-back.
‘When there was offside this season, they tried to speed it up by getting the game going again quickly and not drawing lines. A terrible mistake not to see the Spurs defender with his leg outstretched.’
Liverpool boss Jurgen Klopp, meanwhile, led the protests when he spoke to Sky Sports after the match.
Although he was reluctant to criticize too much because it is ‘expensive’, he did express general frustrations with the quality of performance in the competition.
Liverpool manager Jurgen Klopp expressed his anger at the decision after full-time
Klopp was angry about the decision and said afterwards that he knew the goal should have stood
‘Never on the field. We have seen it. Never offside. At half-time they drew the lines wrong,’ he started.
‘I have not heard anything. Someone opened the phone and Instagram, Twitter, someone put it on. It is clear that they drew the line wrong and did not judge the moment when Mo passed the ball. I’m pretty sure people will talk about that.
He added: “What it does today is undermine other decisions. You start to undermine the process of offside. That’s a really bad one. On the point of who it helps that Klopp said: I am disappointed in that.
‘A lot of people in football don’t say sorry and blame other people. The idea that the referees have come out and said I was wrong, it’s human error, they’ve admitted their mistake. Not many players are owners, myself included.
‘I don’t want anyone to lose their job, but it is very bad. I hope the person who did it can get a few games off but come back again. Liverpool fans can’t see that. I feel bad for them! I’m getting soft after eleven years at Man United.
‘You have to feel a certain degree of empathy. It undermines offside. I had been worried about offside for a few weeks. I thought some things weren’t right.’
‘It’s so hard to deal with it. I really thought we were very calm during the game. It was difficult to deal with it. You see that and think: okay, wow, a red card? Also next red card? Today it is quite a blow for us, because we would have celebrated a point, now no point. That’s not cool. The performance is incredible. I loved that.
Mohamed Salah ‘liked’ a tweet showing the goal was onside to X – his first like since 2017
‘Who does that help? We had it in the Man United game. Did Wolves get points for it? We won’t do that. It does not help. Nobody expects a 100 percent correct decision on the field. We thought VAR might make it easier.
‘Why are they under so much pressure that the decision is made very quickly today? It changed the momentum. In a game where you don’t get much, that’s super important. It was super difficult.
When pressed about the error, he replied, “I will not follow that path. It might be funny to you, but to me it’s just expensive,” before leaving the interview.
Reds striker Salah, who was frustrated after setting up the strike, ‘liked’ a post on X showing the decision was wrong – his first like since 2017.
