The PGMOL have admitted that Luis Diaz's disallowed goal should have stood in Liverpool's 2-1 defeat to Tottenham Hotspur, confirming that a "significant human error" had occurred.
With the scores level at 0-0 in the 34th minute, the Colombian attacker raced through to latch onto Mohamed Salah's pass and fired home across goal, but the offside flag went up immediately.
The customary VAR check occurred, where the images appeared to show Cristian Romero keeping Diaz onside, but Darren England at Stockley Park stuck with the linesman's decision.
Just two minutes after Diaz's strike was chalked off, Son Heung-min propelled Tottenham into the lead, by which point Liverpool had also lost Curtis Jones to a straight red card for a crunching tackle on Yves Bissouma.
Cody Gakpo managed to restore parity for Liverpool on the stroke of half time, but the visitors then went down to nine men when Diogo Jota received two yellow cards in quick succession, and Jurgen Klopp's side cruelly lost their hard-earned point in added time when Joel Matip turned Pedro Porro's cross into his own net.
© Reuters
Alongside the highly contentious red card decisions, Liverpool are now confirmed to have fallen victim to a major officiating error, with a PGMOL statement reading: "PGMOL acknowledge a significant human error occurred during the first half of Tottenham Hotspur v Liverpool.
"The goal by Luiz Diaz was disallowed for offside by the on-field team of match officials. This was a clear and obvious factual error and should have resulted in the goal being awarded through VAR intervention, however, the VAR failed to intervene. PGMOL will conduct a full review into the circumstances which led to the error."
Klopp was made aware of the PGMOL statement in his post-game press conference, but with Liverpool still walking away from the game empty-handed, the German had no time for the officials' apologies.
"Who does that help now? We will not get points for it so it doesn't help," Klopp said. "Nobody expects 100% right decisions on the field, but we all thought when VAR comes in it might make things easier.
"The decision was made really quick I would say for that goal, it changed the momentum of the game. We score that goal, it was top, outstanding, well-played, but the boys dealt extremely well with it. The killer of the game was the second red card, and a lot of other decisions."
🗣️ "They've got that so badly wrong"
— Sky Sports Premier League (@SkySportsPL) September 30, 2023
🗣️ "I'm not a fan of VAR"
Jamie Redknapp and Andros Townsend discuss the disallowed Luis Diaz goal pic.twitter.com/sLixfvMqmM
Also venting his frustrations to Sky Sports News, Klopp was particularly irked by the decision to send off Jota for two bookable offences within the space of a couple of minutes, claiming that the Portuguese "barely touched" Destiny Udogie before bringing him down a second time.
"Nothing changed for us. I don't need that, I saw it, I know whoever made the mistake didn't do on it purpose. It will not help," the Reds boss added.
"How can Jota in this game go off the pitch with two yellow cards, the first he barely touched him and for sure not his fault. That is what is the problem. We have so many things. When did you last hear a game with 11 v 9? And we were close to 11v 8! There were no horrible fouls.
"We were not kicking players or whatever. The boys made a super intense game of it, it is crazy how hard we fought. In the end we got nothing. The result is gone but the performance will stay with me forever. I loved our attitude and our desire.
"They didn't do it on purpose, I know that, but mistakes still happen. If we want to talk about it do it properly and not with creating headlines with emotional managers."
Liverpool's first Premier League defeat of the season leaves them in fourth place in the table, and next up for the Reds is their second Europa League group-stage clash at home to Union SG on Thursday.
Ben Knapton
