Under-pressure officials Darren England and Dan Cook have been axed from this weekend’s Premier League matches following their catastrophic error during Liverpool’s 2-1 defeat to Tottenham on Saturday night.
The duo have been dropped from the top flight by refereeing body PGMOL after they wrongly disallowed Luis Diaz’s opener for offside, with the Liverpool striker clearly being played by the outstretched leg of Tottenham’s Cristian Romero.
At the time of the incident, VAR England and assistant Cook mistakenly thought the on-field decision was onside, and failed to correct the blunder.
The disbelief of the decision has infuriated Liverpool ever since, with the Merseyside team demanding that the PGMOL release the audio that led to that monumental mistake.
And with the saga still continuing, the PGMOL have made the decision to take England and Cook out of the firing line for the final round of Premier League matches before this month’s international break – with Arsenal taking on Manchester City on Sunday in the most striking encounter.
PGMOL has confirmed that officials Darren England (left) and Dan Cook (right) have been banned from this weekend’s Premier League matches following their blunder on September 30
While Liverpool may be happy with that result, it won’t appease them.
Following the Reds’ demands to release the audio, there is division among senior figures at the PGMOL over whether to do so.
They are also reviewing their policy on referees working abroad, with England and Cook having officiated a match in the UAE just 48 hours before the blunder.
Top clubs are putting pressure on PGMOL to cut the foreign jobs, claiming this undermines competition.
Immediately after Spurs’ 2-1 win, the PGMOL admitted that ‘significant human error occurred’ when the Colombian’s goal was disallowed.
It added: ‘This was a clear factual error and should have led to the goal being awarded through VAR intervention.’
Liverpool pledged in a statement on Sunday evening to explore the range of options available – without naming possible approaches.
Liverpool’s strongly worded statement emphasized that ‘unacceptable’ errors had been made in not awarding the goal.
‘Liverpool Football Club acknowledges that PGMOL admitted their failures last night. It is clear that the correct application of the rules of the game has not taken place, which has undermined sporting integrity.
‘We fully accept the pressure under which match officials work, but this pressure must be alleviated and not exacerbated by the existence and implementation of VAR.
And it seems the first step is to ask the referee’s body, PGMOL, to give them access to the audio recording of the conversations that took place between referee Hooper on the pitch and the team in the VAR booth in Stockley Park.
PGMOL was contacted for comment.