The ears of the world have been blessed with the huge errors that led to the glaring mistake of disallowing Luis Diaz’s goal against Spurs and now Dermot Gallagher has shared his thoughts on the released clip.
Speaking on Sky Sports, the former referee said: “It’s now about the process, and one of the processes is they will have to undertake from now is the VAR will have to ask the referee: ‘What is the on-field decision?’
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“If that little question had been asked and [Simon Hooper] said “offside” then you’ve got a starting point. Then you can go forward.
“Unfortunately, because that question wasn’t asked, they were under the impression the goal had been given on the field, and that’s how everything unfolded.”
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It was claimed at the end of the video that was released by the Premier League that they were going to revise the way VAR advice was communicated and if that comes through this huge mistake, then positive change has occurred.
It’s baffling that this wasn’t already a rule anyway but Darren England has learned the hard way that his lapse in judgement combined with a lack of clarity from his and the PGMOL’s instructions, can lead to the worst circumstances.
You can watch Gallagher’s comments on the VAR audio via @footballdaily on X:
🗣️ “They’ve taken ownership of this mistake, it’s been admitted very quickly. Everyone is aware of what happened.”
Dermot Gallagher says it’s good that the Premier League is being transparent over the disallowed Luis Díaz goal for offside between Tottenham and Liverpool. 💭 pic.twitter.com/aP1qo5o6Nj
— Football Daily (@footballdaily) October 4, 2023
Even that is the wrong way forward. The VAR simply needs to reply with an explicit outcome. So as with Cricket reviews it simply states OUT or NOT OUT. This should simply say GOAL or OFFSIDE.
You don’t have to get into, what was the original decision, you need to change your decision, blah, blah, blah…simply because, it doesn’t matter.
I would ask the question “Are you watching the match and did you see the linesman put his flag up?