The whole footballing world has now seemingly watched the audio that was released by the PGMOL regarding the conversation inside the VAR room after the wrong decision to disallow Luis Diaz’s goal, with Oli Kohout playing a starring role.
As reported by Henry Winter on X, there’s been more information shared about him: ‘On-field decision was bad enough, communication then poor, but the worst part was not delaying the restart as called by Oli Kohout, the VAR Hub Ops executive, who spent four years at Hawkeye, has a degree in sports technology from Loughborough and seemed to be the only one doing his job properly’.
To hear that VAR Hub Operations Executive was the main man in attempting to delay the restart of the match and seemingly pushing for a pause in play, suggests he may have been the only person using common sense.
READ MORE: Three changes PGMOL confirm will be made after VAR mishap for Diaz goal
Working for Hawk-Eye shows that the Loughborough University educated official will be one of the most adept at handling these type of situations and so it calls into question why he was overruled.
Holding roles of Football Systems Operator for VAR and Football Area Manager shows that he is well qualified for this call but Darren England didn’t want to listen to him.
Both Kohout and the replay operator seemed to know more than the ‘elite’ referees about what was happening on the pitch and that an error had occurred.
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The strange omission of Michael Oliver’s audio is also glaring, as he was another member of the team who seemed to be pushing for play to be stopped.
Let’s hope that those who impressed can be given the right plaudits and the struggling officials are taught how to be better in their roles.
You can view the Oli Kohout update from Henry Winter on X:
On-field decision was bad enough, communication then poor, but the worst part was not delaying the restart as called by Oli Kohout, the VAR Hub Ops executive, who spent four years at Hawkeye, has a degree in sports technology from Loughborough and seemed to be the only one doing… https://t.co/nQKvIIwabV
— Henry Winter (@henrywinter) October 3, 2023
You can watch the video of the audio alongside the live events that led to the mistake for Diaz’s goal via @footballontnt on X:
🚨 OFFICIAL: PGMOL have released VAR audio from Spurs v Liverpool 🔊 pic.twitter.com/zNLDyHkBbe
— Football on TNT Sports (@footballontnt) October 3, 2023