JORDAN PICKFORD has escaped a retrospective ban for the horror tackle which wrecked Virgil Van Dijk’s season.
But Liverpool have received an apology from Prem refs’ chiefs over the failure to dismiss the England keeper.
As SunSport revealed yesterday, FA disciplinary beaks confirmed they are unable to issue any charges against the Everton man despite recognising a major blunder.
With referee Michael Oliver unsighted, VAR David Coote should have looked at the clash after confirming the correct decision to raise the offside flag against the Liverpool skipper.
Coote, however, failed to make any recommendation to Oliver to undertake a pitchside monitor review, merely backing the onfield flag.
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Under FA disciplinary guidelines, retrospective action is now only applicable where an incident is deemed ‘extraordinary’ or where it was ‘not seen’ by either the match officials or the VAR.
Oliver was aware of a coming together while his assistant had a clear and unobstructed view, while Coote also had access to all the available footgate, with the tackle clearly on the screen he studied.
FA guidance is that for an incident to be ‘extraordinary’ it must meet a very high threshold, such as the horrific foul by Wigan’s Callum McManama on Newcastle’s Massadio Haidara in 2013.
That leaves Pickford in the clear, although former Prem ref Dermot Gallagher, a spokesman for PGMOL, said sorry to Reds’ chief Jurgen Klopp.
Gallagher said: “It was human error – and all we can do is apologise for it.
“It was a three-step process. The first was to see if it was a penalty, which it would have been, but the second was on the offside call.
“That negates the first decision, as it was correctly ruled offside.
“But having gone back to step one, the VAR overlooked step three – which was to see if there should have been a further sanction.
“It should have been a red card. There’s nothing more we can say. The protocol wasn’t followed and didn’t work.”
Gallagher, appearing on Sky Sports News, did however dismiss Liverpool’s complaints over the offside decision against Sadio Mane in the lead-up to Jordan Henderson’s disallowed stoppage time ‘winner’.
He added: “The parameters of VAR were set up as the best system available. All 20 clubs bought into it and knew how it was going to work.
“The lines were drawn and Mane was just offside. It is about fine margins, down to millimetres.
“But this is one element of VAR that is absolutely solid. You are either onside or offside. It is an adjective decision, using the technology, not a subjective one.”
