Telegraph Sport looks at both sides of the argument after Liverpool manager’s extraordinary appeal for match with Spurs to be restaged
Klopp’s replay demand is completely impractical – it would ruin the game
Let’s say Jürgen Klopp is right. We should replay the game. Tottenham Hotspur against Liverpool, all over again. It is surely the honourable thing to do, no? In fact, maybe we should do it on the same weekend as Manchester United play Wolves once more. Or Tottenham – who would be busy – host Brighton. Or maybe even more pertinently another fixture involving Brighton when they drew with Crystal Palace last February.
In that Premier League match, which ended 1-1, Pervis Estupiñán looked to have opened the scoring for Brighton but it was disallowed after a Var review. Why? It was subsequently admitted the offside lines were drawn from the wrong player, stopping at Palace defender James Tomkins when actually team-mate Marc Guehi was behind him. That is a fact. There is no doubt. No subjective decision. Just a bad mistake.
So the goal should have stood. Just as Wolves should have had a penalty against United at Old Trafford in August when goalkeeper Andre Onana took out striker Sasa Kalajdzic; just as Brighton should have had a penalty against Tottenham last April when the game was 1-1 and Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg fouled Kauro Mitoma. They lost 2-1 and it was not the only decision that went against Brighton that day.
Man Utd’s Andre Onana clattered Sasa Kalajdzic earlier in the season but no foul was given Credit: Shutterstock/Peter Powell
Brighton also received an apology from the PGMOL’s chief refereeing officer Howard Webb. Just as Wolves received an apology. Just as Brighton received an apology after drawing with Palace. Just as Liverpool have received an apology now. Just as Brighton, in fact, received another apology after a bad foul by Liverpool’s Fabinho went unpunished and left Evan Ferguson on crutches after an FA Cup tie.
There have been at least 15 official apologies from the PGMOL – including ones to Arsenal, Everton, Palace, West Ham, Newcastle United, Aston Villa, Brentford and Manchester United – since Var was introduced. Fifteen official acknowledgements of irrefutable, serious and real or potentially costly mistakes and so, if you apply Klopp’s logic, that is a large number of games that should be replayed. Not, for example, in the case of the Brighton/Liverpool cup tie of course as Brighton won.
The Palace/Brighton example is particularly relevant given it was unequivocal. The offside lines were just drawn incorrectly. In fact, in essence, it is very similar to the ruling out of Luis Diaz’s opening goal against Tottenham. It was also, therefore, due to incompetence.
But as with all these examples, the PGMOL has admitted liability. It has admitted mistakes were made and so, in theory, the games should be replayed if that happens with Spurs v Liverpool.
And all of this is without mentioning another catastrophic failure when the goal-line technology did not work during Sheffield United’s goalless draw at Aston Villa in June 2020, the first game under ‘Project Restart’. Sheffield United were denied a goal, there was another apology – this time from the tech operators Hawk-Eye – but this ultimately did not help Bournemouth, who were relegated. Villa finished a point above them, there was talk of legal action. But nothing happened.
So once this starts where does it stop? And what is threshold for being granted a replay? How bad does the mistake have to be? Is there a scale?
The outcry over the Diaz decision is unprecedented and it is an extraordinary level of failure. Liverpool have every right to feel aggrieved and the repercussions for the officials involved unfortunately have to be severe. As does what happens with the system. It needs to be completely revamped. A line in the sand moment. It is far too ‘pally’ in the language used; it is far too chaotic and imprecise. The standards are just far too low.
All credit to Webb for releasing the audio of what happened and listening to it, it is staggering. But this does not strengthen Klopp’s case. Calling for a replay is a great headline but he knows it is not only impractical but would create even more chaos.
If Liverpool’s intention in releasing a statement after Saturday’s incident was to bring the PGMOL to account, to demand greater transparency, to help all the clubs, then more power to them. They are helping improve football and it is good for such a big club to do that. If the end game, though, is to want a replay then they have gone too far.
So what are Klopp’s tactics here? Maybe he genuinely believes the game should be played again. Maybe he has slept on it, mulled it over and still believes this is the correct outcome. But that does not appear rational. Liverpool have undoubtedly been wronged. It is an inexcusable error but that is what it is. An error. Just as what happened in those other examples – and many more other clubs will argue where they did not receive a PGMOL apology – and so where does this end?
If Klopp gets his way then the only winners, even if Liverpool go and beat Spurs, will be the lawyers. It will open up a world of litigation for the sport with action and counter-action. His demand is completely impractical and would ruin the sport. Liverpool have done football a service. Now they are in danger of undoing that.
This farce is of a different order to anything before and merits an exceptional remedy
“Cheers mate.” “Thank you mate.” “Well done boys. Good process.” Such was the crisp legalistic language with which Simon Hooper and Darren ‘Daz’ England signed off on the most egregious gaffe of the video assistant referee era. You had hoped that the release of the official audio would help rationalise the events leading up to Luis Diaz’s disallowed goal against Tottenham, that it would at least show the referee and the video assistant forensically following procedure. Instead, the chat from Stockley Park, the Var’s lair, was so blokey and informal that you half-expected to hear a couple of cans being cracked open.
These were people entrusted with making a quick, hugely consequential decision in the world’s richest league. And yet their conversations were pure matey badinage, a blokes-down-the-pub parody of everything that careful officiating was designed to achieve. It is no wonder that former referees’ chief Keith Hackett, who despaired at the level of mindless chatter when officials’ communication kits were first introduced, feels like tearing his hair out. Can you imagine airline pilots being so casual with their pre-flight check lists? They would be fired on the spot.
Even in rugby and cricket, the standard of discourse exposed by this Var fiasco would be deemed grossly inadequate. Wayne Barnes does not suddenly become ‘Waz’ when he goes to the TMO for clarification on a try. Marais Erasmus does not lapse into calling everyone “mate” every two seconds while calculating whether Joe Root should be given out lbw. Only in Premier League football is this lazy repartee accepted as the norm. In a world where the significance of an official’s every move is magnified, the professionalism is minimised.
This is why Klopp’s argument that Liverpool should be granted a replay does not, on this occasion, feel disproportionate. While fears that such a move would unleash a torrent of appeals by similarly aggrieved clubs are well-founded, this controversy is of a different order to anything that has gone before. A goal was legally scored, and then an erroneous application of technology ensured it did not count. “I’m 50 years in football, but something like that, as far as I can remember, has never happened,” Klopp said. Does an exceptional mistake – a once-in-a-half-century mistake, if you accept the Liverpool manager’s version – not merit an exceptional remedy?
It is an unusual type of scandal that the Diaz decision has unleashed. The audio of the moment reveals no cover-up or conspiracy. It shows only rank incompetence, and this is perhaps the most worrying detail of all. For when you introduce a revolution as far-reaching as Var, holding up the awarding of the goal while fans in the stadium are given no information about the discussions taking place, trust in those reaching judgment needs to be absolute. But after hearing the tape, most supporters at Tottenham that night would no sooner place their trust in Var’s verdict than in that of a drunk on the Seven Sisters Road.
Belief in referees as the ultimate arbiters of justice has been ebbing for a while. Earlier this year, Mike Dean shone the least flattering light on the Var process, disclosing that he had not sent Anthony Taylor to the screen to take a second look at Cristiano Romero’s infamous pull on Marc Cucurella’s hair at Stamford Bridge. The reason? “I didn’t want to send him up because he is a mate as well as a referee, and because I didn’t want any more grief than he already had.” Dean’s extraordinary comments hardly endeared him to Chelsea fans, given Romero should have received a red card.
The implications of an official trying to protect a “mate” are self-evident. Equally concerning are the instances of referees falling prey to their own perceived celebrity. Dean was frequently accused of this, whether in his “no-look” yellow cards, where he would refuse even to glance at the offending player, or in the condescension of dismissing Lewis Dunk, all 6ft 4in of him, with the words “off you pop”. It smacked of the background performer wanting to be the leading man, a subject that Pep Guardiola was only too happy to revisit this week.
“The referees and the Vars are the leading roles,” he lamented. “‘And the Oscar goes to…’ They have to make a step back. It’s the players. Some games, be more humble and leave the players to do what they have to do, and they will be better.”
You wonder, though, if humility is the main priority here. Surely, the most pressing concern is to mandate a basic aptitude, a uniform procedure during Var reviews where all officials have to be on their mettle, with no extraneous dialogue tolerated. Hackett has referred more than once this week to the airline industry as an example of how the process should be conducted, and the parallel is well-chosen.
In 1981, the Federal Aviation Administration in the United States imposed a “sterile cockpit” rule, forbidding any non-essential exchanges among crews during critical parts of a flight. There was an acute awareness of how grievous the repercussions of any idle babble could be. While football is not burdened by the same life-or-death calculation, those implementing Var are duty-bound to insist on the highest standards. Too much is at stake for it to be otherwise.
So, no more “mate” this, “mate” that. No more taking the Var shift the day after a seven-hour flight back from the Middle East, as England and his assistant Dan Cook both did. No more mutual backslapping. This is a serious business, where there are multi-million-pound ramifications of being wrong. The Premier League might not grant Liverpool their desired replay, but the very least they can do is to mitigate the merest possibility of a repeat.
