Referees admit Erling Haaland's derby goal was wrong. Will the VAR sit out a round?
Pro Ref, the body that runs Premier League referees, said on 13 September Erling Haaland's derby winner at Manchester United should not have stood.
What happened
Pro Ref, the Premier League refereeing body, said on the evening of that video assistant referee Matt Donohue made an error of judgement in allowing Erling Haaland’s 60th-minute winner for Manchester City at Manchester United, that he should have recommended an on-field review, and that it had contacted United and would review the incident.
Manchester City beat Manchester United 1-0 at Old Trafford on Sunday . City played with ten men after Phil Foden was sent off in the 23rd minute.
Erling Haaland scored on the hour. The goal was first flagged offside. Then the video assistant referee (VAR), Matt Donohue, gave it. He found Haaland onside and decided that Enzo Fernández, who was offside and dived at the ball, had not touched it.
The same evening Pro Ref said the VAR had made a mistake. It said he had not seen how much Fernández’s position mattered and should have sent the referee to the screen by the pitch. It contacted United to accept an error of judgement.
Pro Ref is the body that appoints and manages Premier League referees and VARs. It used to be called PGMOL and then PGMO. Donohue has refereed only four Premier League games, but he was the VAR for 24 league matches last season.
Sky Sports reported that United received an apology. On Arsenal said they would also ask Pro Ref to explain the penalty given against Ezri Konsa at Sunderland the day before.
United were already under pressure. They have four points from four games, equal to their worst start to a Premier League season since 1992-93, and thousands of fans protested against the club’s owners before the derby.
The next round of games, Matchweek 5, runs from 18 to . United play at Fulham on Sunday , the last game of the round. The list of officials for the previous round went up on premierleague.com on , six days before the games, so the next list is due within days.
Sources: BBC (2), Guardian, Independent, Sky Sports (2), BBC, Premier League (2)
The Pattern
We found eight times since VAR began in 2019-20 when the Premier League referees’ body, now called Pro Ref, publicly admitted a VAR or referee mistake that changed a match, and told the club within two days. For each one we checked whether the official it named was left out of every Premier League game in the next round, as referee, VAR, assistant VAR or fourth official.
Show the other 6 cases
The Read
History points to Donohue missing the next round. Seven of the eight officials named in such an admission were left out, and so was every one under Howard Webb. In the two most recent cases, Salisbury was taken off within three days. Pro Ref’s statement said the VAR should have recommended a review, the same words used before Salisbury was removed in . The body also kept Darren England away from Liverpool games for the rest of 2023-24 after the Luis Díaz error, and United have only about eleven league games before , so our forecast for Donohue’s return to a United match is low.
This comes from a policy. Since Howard Webb took charge in , the body has treated a same-week apology and a missed round as the price of a clear error. The BBC reported in 2023 that leaving officials out after the Wolves penalty came directly from his demand for accountability. The panel that reviews key match incidents, which includes someone from Pro Ref, would record the Haaland goal anyway, so admitting it on the night costs less than a week of argument. United wanted an apology they could show their fans, and Arsenal now want an explanation too.
There are reasons for doubt. The record may say as much about how Webb runs referees as about the mistakes. The one exception came under Mike Riley, and this time Pro Ref called Fernández’s offside a matter of judgement, softer words than the significant human error of 2023. Donohue is also a specialist VAR, one of the few who worked more than twenty league games in that role last season, and in May the body kept him as VAR for the final round when the fault it named was Salisbury’s. The first market fails if the officials list for 18 to has his name in any role.
Sources: BBC (2, 3), Guardian, Telegraph, BBC, Sky Sports (2), Premier League
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