Referee Darren England will not lose his job following his high-profile VAR blunder at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium, but he will not officiate Liverpool for the rest of the season.
The 37-year-old was on VAR duty for Saturday’s evening kick-off and mistakenly disallowed Luis Diaz’s opening goal in Liverpool’s 2-1 defeat despite identifying that the Colombian was onside.
Following significant pressure, referees’ body PGMOL released the audio of the blunder in which England wrongly thought the on-field call had been onside, so said ‘check complete’ to confirm the goal – but the on-field team interpreted that as offside.
Play restarted with a free-kick to Spurs at which point VAR could no longer intervene, with England clearly shell-shocked by his error on the audio as panic set in.
The error has prompted PGMOL to improve and refine the VAR process and lines of communication – though that has not been good enough for Jurgen Klopp who believes the game should be replayed.
England was due to be fourth official for Sunday’s Premier League match between Nottingham Forest and Brentford but was stood down, as was assistant VAR Dan Cook for Chelsea’s clash with Fulham.
They also will not officiate in any capacity in the Premier League this coming weekend, while England was stood down from refereeing Leicester’s clash with Preston on Wednesday.
But the pair are expected to return to action after the international break, with The Telegraph reporting that England retains the backing of chief refereeing officer Howard Webb.
After a couple of weeks out of the limelight during the international break, England is expected to be involved in matchday nine of the Premier League.
However, he will not officiate any matches involving Liverpool between now and the end of the season.
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Webb’s predecessor, Mike Riley, generally kept referees away from clubs where decisions had made them unpopular but Webb had wanted to move away from that approach.
In this instance, however, he is understood to feel that it would be unwise to place England in charge of matches involving Liverpool – either as the on-pitch referee or VAR – any time soon.
Although Klopp has floated the idea of a replay, IFAB – the world governing body for the laws of the game – has no plans to change the VAR protocols in light of the error and believe the officials made the right decision by not intervening once play had restarted.
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