The Premier League has released the complete VAR audio related to Virgil van Dijk\u2019s disallowed goal against Manchester City, following a complaint from Liverpool about the decision.<\/p>\n
Earlier this week, Liverpool contacted PGMOL\u2014the organization in charge of refereeing professional English football\u2014to express concerns over Van Dijk\u2019s first-half header, which was ruled out after Andy Robertson was deemed to have interfered with play. The club maintains the goal should have stood, arguing that Robertson did not obstruct Gianluigi Donnarumma, who had a clear line of sight, as Robertson ducked to avoid contact with the ball. Liverpool also claim that standard VAR checks were not properly followed.<\/p>\n
On Tuesday, footage of the disallowed goal was featured on Match Officials Mic’d Up, including audio between referee Chris Kavanagh, assistant Stuart Burt, and VAR officials Michael Oliver and Tim Wood.<\/p>\n
PGMOL chief refereeing officer Howard Webb defended the decision, explaining that officials had to judge whether Robertson\u2019s movement near the goalkeeper affected his ability to save the ball. Webb said:<\/p>\n
> \u201cAs the ball approaches Robertson\u2014just three yards from goal\u2014he ducks under it. Officials must determine whether that action impacts the goalkeeper. It\u2019s subjective, but given his proximity, it\u2019s understandable why they concluded it did affect Donnarumma\u2019s ability to make the save.\u201d<\/p>\n
Webb also emphasized that VAR\u2019s role is to assess whether the on-field decision is \u201cclearly and obviously wrong,\u201d noting only the goalkeeper truly knows if he was impacted.<\/p>\n
Transcript highlights from the VAR review:<\/p>\n
Stuart Burt (Assistant Referee): \u201cRobertson\u2019s in the keeper\u2019s line of vision. He\u2019s ducked under the ball. I think he\u2019s impacted Donnarumma.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chris Kavanagh (Referee): \u201cOk, so offside then. On-field decision is offside.\u201d<\/p>\n
Michael Oliver (VAR): \u201cConfirming the on-field offside decision against Robertson. He\u2019s very close to the goalkeeper and makes an obvious movement in front of him. Check complete: offside.\u201d<\/p>\n
Tim Wood (VAR): \u201cI agree with the on-field decision. It\u2019s a clear, obvious action that impacts the goalkeeper.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The Premier League has released the complete VAR audio related to Virgil van Dijk\u2019s disallowed goal against Manchester City, following a complaint from Liverpool about the decision. Earlier this week, Liverpool contacted PGMOL\u2014the organization in charge of refereeing professional English football\u2014to express concerns over Van Dijk\u2019s first-half header, which was ruled out after Andy Robertson …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":18,"featured_media":54251,"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-54250","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\/resize-16.webp","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54250","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=54250"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54250\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":54252,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/54250\/revisions\/54252"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/54251"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=54250"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=54250"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/eplbanter.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=54250"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}