Ben Foster let rip over the haste with which play was restarted following Luis Diaz’s disallowed goal against Tottenham on Saturday, and also accused Sky Sports and the PGMOL of being in collusion with one another over coverage of the incident.
During the first half in north London, the Colombian finished to the net but was wrongly judged to have been offside, with an abnormally quick subsequent VAR review failing to overturn the obvious error.
Speaking on The Football Hub, the former England goalkeeper made no secret of his fury over how the controversy played out and accused the broadcaster of sweeping it under the rug during their match coverage.
Foster fumed: “The bit that I found really disappointing about that Luis Diaz goal is that they never showed a replay of it. They showed one, didn’t they? They showed one very quick replay, as soon as it happened, and the game was moved on already. The game was already restarting and I’m thinking ‘well that was quick’.
“Every image we saw, we thought ‘that looks onside’. They didn’t show another replay for the rest of the first half – not one replay – and then at half-time, they didn’t talk about it once until 10 seconds before the start of the second half.
“Do you know what it tells me? That tells me that Sky are in bed with the people at VAR and the [PGMOL], whatever it is, because they must have got straight on the phone and said ‘Do not highlight the fact that we [messed] up. Do not show it. Do not talk about it or bad-mouth us. Do nothing’
“I guarantee you that’s what happened, so that’s why Sky were under direct orders to not say a single word about it.”
It’s quite the accusation from Foster to say that Sky Sports and the PGMOL would be in collusion with one another to safeguard the reputations of match officials, although the 40-year-old raised a pertinent point as to why the issue wasn’t discussed more prominently at half-time.
It might’ve dominated the headlines ever since, but it certainly seemed to have been dismissed unusually quickly at the time that it happened.
You can view Foster’s comments below, via thefootballhub90 on TikTok:
@thefootballhub90 VAR is a disgrace #liverpool #premierleague #goldbridge ♬ original sound – The Football Hub
All that they have said really is ‘Don’t do it again you naughty boys’. Pathetic.