Howard Webb reveals the VAR changes made after Luis Diaz’s disallowed goal vs Spurs

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·11 October 2023

Howard Webb reveals the VAR changes made after Luis Diaz’s disallowed goal vs Spurs

Highlights

PGMOL has taken steps to prevent a repeat of the mistake seen in the Liverpool vs. Tottenham match where a legal goal was incorrectly ruled offside.
VAR miscommunication led to the on-field decision being considered final, despite it being incorrect.
Changes to communication protocols and guidelines have been implemented to avoid similar errors in the future.

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Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) chief Howard Webb has revealed that steps have been taken to avoid a repeat of the mistake seen at the end of September as Liverpool forward Luis Diaz had a perfectly legal goal chalked for offside against Tottenham Hotspur.

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The all-intense affair was goalless as the half hour mark was surpassed, though the Colombian put the visiting side ahead after 34 minutes after Mohamed Salah delivered a pass.

However, the goal was immediately considered offside. Upon review, the VAR team at Stockley Park should’ve notified the referee Simon Hooper that the on-field decision was incorrect, though a miscommunication meant the man in the middle assumed the check was complete.

Ange Postecoglou's side then went on to win the game 2-1 as Joel Matip inadvertently turned in Pedro Porro's cross into his own net at the death as the Reds' unbeaten streak was duly broken.

Via the released audio clip of the VAR team (which you can see below) – led by Darren England – you can hear Dan Cook, the replay operator, alert England that they had misunderstood the on-field decision, hence why they had told Hooper to continue the game.

Of course, set-in-stone rules meant that the game could not be halted in order to rectify the gaffe and play resumed.

"They considered whether or not they could intervene to stop the game. But they recognised that the laws of the game as set by FIFA and the International Football Advisory Board [Ifab] doesn't allow that," Webb said. "That's a process in place that sits in the laws of the game about how we use VAR to make sure it's delivered consistently throughout every league on the world, and it doesn't allow you to go back in those circumstances and as such they decided not to intervene."

Video: Referee audio of disallowed Diaz goal vs Tottenham

Howard Webb highlights that changes will be made on Match Officials: Mic'd Up

Webb joined former Manchester United and Liverpool striker Michael Owen on Tuesday night’s edition of Match Officials: Mic’d Up to assure fans – as PGMOL chief – that changes were in line to be made following a series of mistakes made over the last couple of weeks.

"We've put quite a lot of steps in place to ensure the error that we saw doesn't happen again,” Webb exclaimed. One of things this brought into sharp focus is the need to reiterate some of those communication protocols which are really valuable in VAR to prevent this type of thing happening,"

In the released audio put up by PGMOL, England can be heard claiming the on-field call was ‘perfect’ before swearing as realisation hit. In turn, Webb has said that VAR had “fallen short” on said occasion and with fresh communication guidelines now in place, a similar blunder should not happen again.

"We got all of the officials together, we spoke through the need to go through that process very diligently. We're really disappointed for the game, we're disappointed for our reputation. "We worked hard over the subsequent days to have a look at what we needed to do to put in place those safeguards around the communication to avoid that sort of thing happening again."

Webb also suggested that small changes to regulations surrounding VAR could be made by the International Football Association Board (Ifab) in order to iron out any present issues. For reference, Ifab are the body that determine the laws of the game.

What are the changes to the communication guidelines that PGMOL have made?

"We took the unusual step of releasing the audio from this situation not long after it happened. We wanted to show everybody what was quickly apparent to us was a pretty significant human error - loss of concentration. "One of the things that we have to do is put things in place to ensure that should we have human error, it doesn't have the damaging impact that we saw on this occasion. We want the on-field referee to communicate to the VAR what the on-field decision is, very clearly. Then the VAR to go back to the on-field referee and acknowledge that they've heard that properly. "The VAR goes through the process then of checking the situation giving clear direction to the replay operator to get the right angles, speaking to that assistant VAR as they go through that as well, so the assistant VAR can be another check and balance, before communicating to the field, speaking to the AVAR [assistant VAR] to say what their intended direction of travel is going to be.Then, at that moment, not just saying 'check complete, check complete' because what are you check completing?"