Virgil van Dijk\u2019s goal was controversially ruled out on Sunday, adding to the scrutiny surrounding referee Michael Oliver.<\/p>\n
The 40-year-old official, who served as VAR for Liverpool\u2019s 3-0 defeat to Manchester City, has come under fire following his involvement in the decision to disallow Van Dijk\u2019s first-half header. The goal was overturned after Andy Robertson was judged to be in an offside position and obstructing the goalkeeper\u2019s view.<\/p>\n
A Premier League statement later confirmed: \u201cThe referee\u2019s call of offside and no goal to Liverpool was checked and confirmed by VAR \u2013 with Robertson in an offside position and deemed to be making an obvious action directly in front of the goalkeeper.\u201d<\/p>\n
Liverpool manager Arne Slot voiced his frustration after the match, insisting: \u201cIt was obvious and clear that the wrong decision was made. He didn\u2019t interfere at all with what the goalkeeper could do.\u201d<\/p>\n
The disallowed goal denied Liverpool a crucial equaliser before they ultimately fell 3-0 at the Etihad.<\/p>\n
Meanwhile, Michael Oliver remains prohibited from officiating matches involving two clubs \u2014 Newcastle United and Sunderland \u2014 due to his personal connections. A lifelong Newcastle supporter, Oliver also represented the club at youth level and has openly admitted his allegiance.<\/p>\n
\u201cWe have to declare if we support a club or have family members working for one,\u201d Oliver previously told the Daily Mail. \u201cYou can\u2019t do any match involving that team, and I can\u2019t do Sunderland either, for obvious reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cIf Newcastle needed a point to stay up and the team they were battling with was, say, Aston Villa, I couldn\u2019t referee Villa\u2019s game either. It\u2019s not worth the hassle.\u201d<\/p>\n
Former PGMOL chief Keith Hackett has explained that referees are required to declare their background and club associations before each season, to prevent any conflicts of interest in match appointments.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Virgil van Dijk\u2019s goal was controversially ruled out on Sunday, adding to the scrutiny surrounding referee Michael Oliver. The 40-year-old official, who served as VAR for Liverpool\u2019s 3-0 defeat to Manchester City, has come under fire following his involvement in the decision to disallow Van Dijk\u2019s first-half header. The goal was overturned after Andy Robertson …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":54118,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-54117","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/11\/1762796139246.jpg","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54117","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/18"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=54117"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54117\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54119,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54117\/revisions\/54119"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/54118"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54117"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54117"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54117"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}