Rio Ferdinand has admitted he was surprised by the lack of leadership on show amongst the officials during Liverpool’s defeat to Spurs on Saturday.
The game was marred by VAR controversy after Jurgen Klopp’s side thought they had taken the lead in the first half through Luis Diaz only for the goal to be incorrectly ruled out for offside.
VAR Darren England failed to intervene and the north London outfit would go on to win 2-1 after Son Heung-min’s effort and Joel Matip’s late own goal came either side of Cody Gakpo’s strike for the Reds.
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Audio footage of the fiasco was released by the Pgmol earlier today and the former Manchester United defender has explained how such mistakes could’ve been avoided this season.
“This is high level stuff, this is the Premier League, beamed around the world, huge investment in our game,” Ferdinand told TNT Sports (as quoted by Manchester Evening News). “In this type of situation, I’m looking for – as an ex-player and part of the media now – I’m looking for ownership in that situation.
“Who is taking ownership of that situation? Who is the boss? Who is leading? It looks like they’re all in there and no one knows who to look to and who is going to take ownership, that’s my first point.
“My second point is in the World Cup, technology took over this type of situation. It wasn’t left to human error, technology took over.
“Then there was a vote from the Premier League to say that technology isn’t ready yet, we don’t want it. If they’d let this come in we wouldn’t be sitting here having a problem with this situation believe.”
The technology that was on show during the World Cup appeared to work much better than the process we currently see on show in the Premier League.
It was a real howler from the officials at the weekend and it remains hard to understand how such a huge error can be made when there are so many people involved in the process.
There was England, who was joined by his assistant Dan Cook, and both clearly were not paying attention and therefore failed to do their job properly.
It took the replay operator inside the VAR studio to notice that the incorrect decision had been made, rather than the two qualified referees.
It’ll be interesting to see whether any new technology is introduced in the coming weeks and months because changes clearly need to be made – including changes amongst personnel.