PGMOL chief Howard Webb is under pressure to block Premier League match officials from travelling to the Middle East for midweek fixtures.
It has been revealed that Darren England and Dan Cook – who were in the VAR booth for Liverpool’s controversial clash with Tottenham on Saturday – formed part of an officiating team in the UAE on Thursday evening, giving them just 48 hours in which to complete a long-haul flight and recover in time to keep an eye across top-flight action in north London.
They failed to spot that a Luis Diaz effort in the first half of Liverpool’s game with Spurs had been wrongly ruled out for offside, leading to PGMOL having to issue an apology for a “significant human error” impacting proceedings at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium.
Poor Management
Former PGMOL chief Keith Hackett has told Telegraph Sport of the midweek jaunts to the Middle East:
“I understand that they officiated on Thursday evening, which means on Friday they will have had a minimum seven hours in the air.
“This impacts on their recovery and a loss of sharpness in their performance.
“In my time in office if they were in Europe on Thursday then they would not officiate until late Sunday or Monday at the earliest.
“This is yet another example of poor management of these professional sports persons and actual changes must be made to stop these mounting errors.”
Concerns have been raised regarding a potential conflict of interest as match officials split their time between the Premier League and lucrative wages on offer in the Middle East, although there is no evidence of that being the case at present.
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Webb is, however, under pressure to bring an end to the trips outside of those taken in as part of European competition in a bid to remove any potential distractions and bring about an end to the regular debates regarding costly errors being made in the VAR department.