10 October 2023 , 18:58
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PGMOL chief Howard Webb has revealed changes to the way VAR is used in the Premier League following the controversy over Liverpool's wrongly disallowed goal in their 2-1 defeat to Tottenham.
Luis Diaz's goal was ruled out for offside by the assistant referee, but he was found to have been onside when the goal was reviewed by VAR. However, a communication error meant VAR Darren England wrongly told the on-field official Simon Hooper the intial decision should stand when he actually should have overturned.
And Webb has revealed the PGMOL has now "put a lot of steps in place to ensure this error doesn't happen again". Speaking on Match Officials Mic'd Up, Webb said: "We know human error can happen in all walks of life but we have to put things in place to ensure it doesn't have a significant impact like this.
"This brought into focus the need to reiterate the communication protocols that are really valuable. We want the on-field officials to clearly tell the VAR what the decision is and the VAR to go back to the referee to check they have heard it correctly.
"The VAR goes through the process of checking the decision, speaking to the assistant VAR before communicating to the field, to say what their intended decision is. Then, not just saying 'check complete', instead saying 'check complete, decision offside', which can be another trigger.
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"We have put a lot of steps in place to ensure this error doesn't happen again." When asked why the VAR officials did not stop the game as soon as they realised their error, Webb replied that the laws prevent them from doing so but that IFAB are "doing a full review of the laws of the game in relation to VAR".
He explained: "I understand why people would ask that question and actually the VAR and the AVAR ask themselves that question too. When the penny dropped as to what had happened, I think 20 seconds had passed.
Webb has outlined some changes to VAR following Luis Diaz's disallowed goal (Getty Images)"And at that point they considered whether or not they could intervene to stop the game. They recognise that the Laws of the Game set by FIFA and the International FA Board (IFAB) don't allow that.
"There'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 in the world. It doesn't allow you to go back in those circumstances and as such they decided not to intervene.
"The International FA Board were in fact going to do a full review of the Laws of the Game relating to the use of VAR and … will look at whether or not there's a need to tweak some of it, and I'm sure that they'll be looking at this aspect of how VAR is used as well."