Referee Michael Oliver has once again become the centre of controversy after backing his assistant\u2019s call to disallow Virgil van Dijk\u2019s goal for offside during Liverpool\u2019s 3-0 defeat to Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium.<\/p>\n
Andy Robertson was deemed to have obstructed Gianluigi Donnarumma\u2019s view, with the Premier League explaining that the defender made \u201can obvious action directly in front of the goalkeeper.\u201d However, the decision sparked outrage among fans, who argued that Robertson wasn\u2019t blocking the keeper and had merely ducked to let the ball pass into the net.<\/p>\n
For years, some Liverpool supporters have accused Oliver of bias against their club, pointing to incidents such as Jeremy Doku\u2019s unpunished challenge on Alexis Mac Allister in the same fixture in 2024. Further fuelling that belief is the fact that Oliver has never sent off a Manchester City player. But few are aware that he\u2019s actually barred from officiating matches involving two English teams.<\/p>\n
The Two Clubs Michael Oliver Is Not Permitted to Referee<\/p>\n
Born in Ashington, Northumberland, Oliver began refereeing at the age of 14 and quickly rose through the ranks, earning promotion to the National List of Referees in 2007. In August 2010, he became the youngest referee in Premier League history when he took charge of Birmingham vs Blackburn at just 25 years old.<\/p>\n
Due to his North East roots, the 40-year-old is prohibited from officiating games involving Newcastle United. For the same reason, he is also not allowed to referee Sunderland matches. \u201cWe have to declare any club allegiances or family connections,\u201d Oliver once explained, as quoted by the Express. \u201cYou can\u2019t take charge of any match involving that team, and I can\u2019t do Sunderland either, for obvious reasons.\u201d<\/p>\n
Former PGMOL chief Keith Hackett elaborated on the rule:<\/p>\n
\u201cAt the start of every season, referees\u2019 background information is reviewed. They submit details about who they support, their playing history, and where they live. That helps prevent potential conflicts of interest \u2014 for example, you wouldn\u2019t assign a Sheffield-based referee to a Sheffield club.\u201d<\/p>\n
Following the Manchester City match, Oliver faced intense criticism on social media for his role in the disallowed goal, while Liverpool have since lodged a formal complaint with PGMOL expressing their \u201cserious concerns\u201d about the handling of the incident.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Referee Michael Oliver has once again become the centre of controversy after backing his assistant\u2019s call to disallow Virgil van Dijk\u2019s goal for offside during Liverpool\u2019s 3-0 defeat to Manchester City at the Etihad Stadium. Andy Robertson was deemed to have obstructed Gianluigi Donnarumma\u2019s view, with the Premier League explaining that the defender made \u201can …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":54185,"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-54187","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\/elliott-liverpool-future-1200x674.jpg.webp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54187","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=54187"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54187\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54188,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54187\/revisions\/54188"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/54185"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54187"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54187"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54187"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}