Liverpool say 'sporting integrity undermined' after VAR blunder in Spurs defeat, club to 'explore options'

Liverpool believe that "sporting integrity" was "undermined" after a VAR error in their 2-1 defeat to Tottenham on Saturday.

VAR did not overturn the on-field decision to disallow a goal from Luis Diaz for offside despite Tottenham defender Cristian Romero clearly playing the Colombian onside from the pass by Mohamed Salah.

The decision came when the match was still goalless but after Liverpool had gone down to 10 men due to Curtis Jones controversially having a yellow card upgraded to a straight red following a VAR check.

PGMOL, the governing body for referees, later admitted that VAR official Darren England and assistant Dan Cook made a mistake when checking Diaz's goal.

In a statement released on Sunday evening, Liverpool said: "Liverpool Football Club acknowledges PGMOL’s admission of their failures last night. It is clear that the correct application of the laws of the game did not occur, resulting in sporting integrity being undermined.

"We fully accept the pressures that match officials work under but these pressures are supposed to be alleviated, not exacerbated, by the existence and implementation of VAR.

"It is therefore unsatisfactory that sufficient time was not afforded to allow the correct decision to be made and that there was no subsequent intervention.

"That such failings have already been categorised as 'significant human error' is also unacceptable. Any and all outcomes should be established only by the review and with full transparency.

"This is vital for the reliability of future decision-making as it applies to all clubs with learnings being used to make improvements to processes in order to ensure this kind of situation cannot occur again.

"In the meantime, we will explore the range of options available, given the clear need for escalation and resolution."

Jones was sent off in the 26th minute, forcing Liverpool to play without a man for the majority of the match. At half-time, both sides had scored, with Son Heung-min opening up the scoring for the hosts, before Cody Gakpo equalised on the brink of half-time.

Diogo Jota was sent off in the 69th minute for a second yellow card, leaving the visitors down to nine for the final 20 minutes. Joel Matip's last-gasp own goal handed Spurs the winner in added time.

PGMOL released a statement straight after full-time saying: "PGMOL acknowledge a significant human error occurred. PGMOL will conduct a full review.

"The goal by Luiz 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."

Due to the error, England will be replaced as fourth official in Nottingham Forest's match against Brentford on Sunday, while Cook will not take part as assistant referee in Fulham's match against Chelsea on Monday.

The loss was Jurgen Klopp's first in the Premier League this season, with the Liverpool manager saying he had never seen a match more "unfair."

"That is not offside when you see it," said Klopp.

"The ball is between Mo [Salah]'s legs, they drew the line wrong and didn't judge the moment when Mo passed the ball right.

"I don't think we should talk too much about that because it doesn't help at all," he added.

"Wolves got a similar statement, or apology. They didn't get a point out of United and we won't get a point today so it doesn't help.

"I am pretty sure no one is making mistakes on purpose but it still happened and at this moment I don't know why. [We had] scored a fantastic goal - would it have changed the game? I don't know. But probably, because goals help."

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