10 October 2023 , 08:24
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Luis Diaz has opened up for the first time over the significant VAR blunder that saw his goal against Tottenham wrongly disallowed and how it has affected him.
Diaz, 26, was on target for Liverpool last month but was flagged for offside. The decision was checked by VAR, however, Darren England and Dan Cook failed to realise that the goal had been ruled out, so they did not overturn the on-field decision - even though they had clearly established that Diaz was onside.
The game was goalless at the point, but Liverpool went on to lose 2-1 courtesy of a Joel Matip own goal right at the death. Jurgen Klopp 's side also had two players sent off, with Curtis Jones and Diogo Jota both seeing red.
There has been plenty said about the controversial incident, but Diaz has remained silent - until now. “The goal issue was a bit complicated,” Diaz admitted during an interview with Colombian outlet El Heraldo. “At the time it hit me very hard, but not only to me, but to all my teammates.
“In the middle of the game we talked about it a lot, it was a positive result that was going to help us. These are things that happen, the referees are human. You have to take it easy and for the next one it will be.”
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PGMOL chief Howard Webb will address the incident for the first time in the next instalment of 'Match Officials: Mic'ed Up', which will air on Sky Sports and TNT Sports on Tuesday night.
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Luis Diaz has broken his silence over the VAR controversy that marred Liverpool's match against Tottenham a fortnight ago (Sky Sports)The PGMOL issued an immediate apology to Liverpool in light of the mistake, which was attribute as a "significant human error". That was not enough to appease Klopp, though, with the Liverpool chief stressing that he believed that ordering a replay would be the fairest thing to do.
“The audio didn't change it at all because I was not really interested in why things happen. I saw the outcome, I saw a goal, and I saw it didn't count. It's really important that we deal with it in a proper way,” he explained.
“The only outcome should be a replay…probably won’t happen. The argument against that will be if we open that gate everyone will ask for it. I think the situation is unprecedented. I’m 56 years old and I’m absolutely used to wrong decisions. But something like that as far as I can remember has never happened. That’s why it should be a replay. ”
He added: “I think a replay would be the right thing, or, the ref has the opportunity to bring both coaches together and say ‘we made a mistake, let Liverpool score a goal and we start from there’. What makes this specific game so special is that we concede two minutes after and how all things depend on each other, if we had scored we would have started the game in the centre. It would have been different.”