Liverpool can push the Premier League to stage a replay of their controversial defeat against Tottenham on Saturday, a top sports lawyer has revealed following the aftermath of the Reds’ 2-1 defeat.
After VAR officials Darren England and Dan Cook wrongly disallowed Luis Diaz’s goal for offside during the Premier League clash, PGMOL admitted that a ‘significant human error’ had led to the mistake and have since released the audio of their discussions to the public.
Following PGMOL’s initial statement in the aftermath of the match, Liverpool urged that the decision was ‘unacceptable’ and vowed to ‘explore options’ in a bid to receive justice for the wrongdoing, with the first step to hear VAR’s conversation with on-field referee Simon Hooper.
Sports lawyer Stephen Taylor Heath, co-head of law firm JMW Solicitors, has told Mail Sport that the Premier League board holds the power to order a league match to be replayed if recommended by an appointed commission.
According to rule W1 of the Premier League’s statutes, the board is able to ‘request further information on any possible breach of rules’, including ones made by an official.
Jurgen Klopp (above) and Liverpool can push the Premier League to stage a replay of their controversial 2-1 defeat against Tottenham on Saturday, a top sports lawyer has revealed
PGMOL admitted that a ‘significant human error’ had led to Luis Diaz’s goal being disallowed and have since released the audio of VAR’s discussion with the on-field referee to the public
As explained by PGMOL and highlighted in the released audio, video assistant referee England and his assistant Cook initially thought the on-field decision was to award the goal for Liverpool – and thus did not overturn the offside when replays clearly showed Diaz in an onside position.
The VAR operator is heard to say after play wrongly restarted, ‘Wait, wait, wait, wait, the on-field decision was “offside”, are you happy with this? That’s wrong that, Daz’, to which England sighs and swears, shouting ‘Oh f***’.
Play stopped approximately 30 seconds later as Liverpool were awarded a throw-in, but the panicked VAR team chose not to correct the blunder and carried on with the game, stating: ‘They’ve restarted the game. Can’t do anything. Can’t do anything’.
Speaking to Mail Sport, Heath said: ‘If the PGMOL’s position is that the initial error was that they thought a goal had been given, then it is quite troubling as the graphic shows it displayed what they were being asked to check.
The Liverpool manager argues with fourth official Michael Oliver (left) after the VAR blunder
The disallowed strike came just three minutes before Son Heung-min’s opener for Tottenham
‘There is a possibility that Liverpool could put pressure on the Premier League board to convene a commission which would have the ability, among other possible outcomes, to implement a replay.
‘It could be argued that if the official had immediately been aware of an error and communicated that to players and staff, Tottenham’s manager could have allowed Liverpool to score a goal unchallenged.
‘This was done before when Marcelo Bielsa ordered Leeds United to let Aston Villa score after his side found the back of the net with an opposition player injured.’
However, Heath also stated that it could be difficult for Liverpool to establish the mistake cost the Anfield club points in a legal sense, as there are several additional factors that could determine the result of a match.
