Refereeing body admits Luis Díaz's goal against Tottenham should have stood

The PGMOL has admitted that Luis Díaz's first-half strike against Spurs should have stood, having acknowledged that "a significant human error" on the part of the VAR team had taken place during Saturday's game at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.

The Professional Game Match Officials Limited, the group responsible for officiating all Premier League matches, issued a statement during Liverpool's late defeat, admitting that the Colombian's strike had been incorrectly ruled out for offside.

"The goal by Luis Diaz was disallowed for offside by the on-field team of match officials. This was a clear and obvious factual error and should have resulted in the goal being awarded through VAR intervention. However, the VAR failed to intervene."

Liverpool, who had Curtis Jones and Diogo Jota sent off, ended up losing the game when Joël Matip's last-ditch own goal handed three points to the hosts. They had levelled the scores just before half-time when Cody Gakpo found the back of the net, cancelling out Son Heung-min's earlier opener.

However, just moments after Jones was sent off, when the scores were still level at 0-0, Díaz seemed to have put the Reds in the lead. The Colombian latched onto Mohamed Salah's through ball, only for it to be ruled offside following a very brief VAR review.

To the naked eye, this decision appeared questionable at best and by half time, it had become abundantly clear that an error had occurred.

A review pending

The referees' body confirmed following the incident that it will "conduct a full review into the circumstances which led to the error".

Additionally, the statement said: "PGMOL will immediately be contacting Liverpool at the conclusion of the fixture to acknowledge the error."

Darren England was the man tasked with VAR duties for the match, with Dan Cook acting as assistant VAR.