In a week which has seen the officials involved in Liverpool’s 2-1 defeat to Tottenham last Saturday heavily scrutinised over a series of controversial incidents, an independent panel has found that referee Simon Hooper got one big decision wrong.
We all know by now about the VAR-induced mess over Luis Diaz’s disallowed goal, while the Reds’ appeal against Curtis Jones’ red card has been rejected.
As per ESPN, the Premier League’s Independent Key Match Incidents Panel has ruled that the other dismissal in that game was erroneous, finding that Diogo Jota’s booking for a foul on Destiny Udogie didn’t merit his second yellow card of the evening.
The five-person panel – comprising three former players and/coaches and one representative each from the EPL and PGMOL – voted 3-2 that the decision ‘did not meet the threshold for a yellow card’.
It was actually Jota’s first ‘offence’ – when Udogie tripped himself in breaking away from the Liverpool attacker – which caused more consternation among Reds fans, with a belief that his second booking was reckless in light of his initial yellow card.
However, as per ESPN, the panel doesn’t make judgements on a first bookable offence if a player is sent off for two yellows, so they were left to solely adjudicate on the 26-year-old’s latter caution.
It says a lot about the performance of the officials at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium last Saturday that even the least inexplicable of the major decisions made by Hooper and the VAR team is still independently deemed to have been incorrect.
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The panel’s findings will come as little consolation to Jota, who’s now suspended for the tough trip to Brighton on Sunday when Liverpool will also be without Cody Gakpo through injury, thus depriving Jurgen Klopp of two attackers.
Between this latest report, on top of the contentious red card for Jones and the utterly farcical events around Diaz’s disallowed goal, the officials unfortunately continue to be in the spotlight nearly a week on from the match in north London.
We don’t want to be castigating referees, who unselfishly play a massive role in football throughout the country, but we need them to do better than last weekend so that their profession isn’t brought into disrepute and teams aren’t feeling slighted over mistakes which shouldn’t be happening.
#Ep93 of The Empire of the Kop Podcast: EOTK Insider with Steve Kay🎙️