Referees’ Chief Howard Webb Defends Disallowed Liverpool Goal in Manchester City Match
MANCHESTER, England – Howard Webb, the chief of Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL), has publicly backed the decision to disallow Virgil van Dijk’s headed goal during Liverpool’s 1-0 defeat to Manchester City on Saturday. The controversial call, made with the score at 1-0, sparked immediate debate and criticism from Liverpool manager arne Slot, who called it “obvious and clear a wrong decision.”
Webb acknowledged that decisions regarding whether a player is interfering with play are “some of the moast subjective decisions that we have to make,” but stated he believed the match officials were correct in their assessment. He explained on TNT Sports’ Match Officials Mic’d Up that the officials concluded Andrew Robertson’s positioning impacted Manchester City goalkeeper Gianluigi Donnarumma’s ability to make a save. “When the player is so close to the goalkeeper, the ball’s coming right towards him, he has to duck to get out of the way of the ball and [the match officials] form the conclusion that that impacts Donnarumma’s dive towards the ball to make that save,” Webb said.
The Premier League’s Match Center stated at the time of the incident that Robertson was “deemed to be making an obvious action directly in front of the goalkeeper.” However, sources have told ESPN that Liverpool disputes this premise, arguing that the wording of Law 11 - concerning offside offenses – was clear and no criteria for disallowing the goal were met. Liverpool maintains that Donnarumma’s vision was not impeded by Robertson.
Despite the on-field offside call, VAR Michael Oliver did not instruct referee Thomas Kavanagh to review the incident on the pitch-side monitor. Liverpool believes a different outcome could have been reached with a review. Webb defended Oliver’s decision, stating the VAR’s role is to determine if the on-field offside call was “clearly and obviously wrong.” He added, “The VAR determines that the outcome of offside is not clearly and obviously wrong and they stay out of it.”
