VAR officials back to work in Premier League after Tottenham-Liverpool controversy

The VAR screen checking a possible offside for a Luis Diaz goal between Liverpool and Tottenham in September 2023, which was wrongly disallowed following a VAR mix-up.
(Image credit: Getty Images)

The VAR officials responsible for the mix-up which saw Liverpool's Luis Diaz denied a perfectly good goal in the Premier League game against Tottenham late last month will be back on duty after the international break.

Darren England and Dan Cook allowed the match to continue after a check, believing that the on-field decision had been to award the goal. Instead, the original call was offside and that was the one which stood. And when the game restarted, they were unable to correct their mistake.

Spurs went on to score shortly afterwards and even though Liverpool levelled late in the half, the Reds ended up losing after a Joel Matip own goal deep in added time at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

Liverpool were left frustrated as the body responsible for refereeing top-flight games in England, PGMOL, admitted the error and apologised after the match.

Jurgen Klopp's side also had two players sent off in the clash in north London and the Premier League's Independent Key Match Incidents Panel later ruled that Diogo Jota's first yellow card was not worthy of a booking.

The German manager spoke of 'crazy' and 'unfair' decisions after the game and later said that the only fair outcome would be to replay the match.

England and Cook were due to work on Premier League games the following day, but the pair were relieved of their Sunday duties following their mistake in N17 and also sat out the next round of matches.

But following the current break in Premier League action for international fixtures, the pair will return to work.

England is down to be the fourth official as Brentford take on Burnley in west London on Saturday, with Cook on assistant refereeing duty for Manchester United's clash with Sheffield United at Old Trafford later in the day.

While it is impossible to know what would have happened if the decision had been corrected, Liverpool lost their unbeaten record in the 2-1 loss at Tottenham, while Spurs are currently top of the Premier League.

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Ben Hayward
Weekend editor

Ben Hayward is a European football writer and Tottenham Hotspur fan with over 15 years’ experience, he has covered games all over the world - including three World Cups, several Champions League finals, Euros, Copa America - and has spent much of that time in Spain. Ben speaks English and Spanish, currently dividing his time between Barcelona and London, covering all the big talking points of the weekend on FFT: he’s also written several list features and interviewed Guglielmo Vicario for the magazine.

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