Darren England, the video assistant referee who failed to overturn Luis Diaz’s wrongly disallowed goal for Liverpool at Tottenham in 2023, has called it the lowest point of his career, and revealed that journalists turned up outside his daughters’ school in the days that followed.
The 40-year-old opened up to BBC Sport about the night that stalled his career for months. Diaz had the ball in the net, the flag went up for offside, and despite the VAR image showing he was onside, England said “check complete”. The goal stayed chalked off, and Tottenham went on to win 2-1.
Three years on, his career has turned right around. He took charge of this year’s FA Cup final, and this week he was handed his first Champions League appointment as a VAR.
What did Darren England say about the Luis Diaz error?
The worst part, England explained, was that the game was only 34 minutes old. From the VAR audio it was clear that he and his assistant VAR, Dan Cook, knew straight away they had made a huge mistake, and they still had an hour to get through.
England said: “Once I realised I’d made the error, it’s a really difficult place to try to forget that and move on. I can’t just physically stand up and walk out and leave it alone. A lot of resilience was needed, a lot of experience as well.”
He described the VAR hub as a high-pressure place with no commentary and no real crowd noise, just the officials talking through their headsets. After a busy match, he said, you can walk out of there mentally exhausted.
“People outside my girls’ school”
What followed went well beyond football. The story ran for days across newspapers, radio phone-ins and social media. Liverpool put out a statement saying “sporting integrity” had been “undermined”. Photographers waited outside his children’s school, one story looked at the value of his home, and family photos were lifted from his wife’s Facebook account.
“The aftermath obviously was really difficult to deal with,” England said. “It was challenging because it’s the goldfish bowl of the Premier League. But when mistakes happen, then you’re in the public eye and criticism’s inevitably going to come your way.
“That was difficult because it affected my family as well. We had people outside my girls’ school, journalists and things like that. That then affects you not as a referee, but as a human being.”
How long was England out after the Tottenham vs Liverpool mistake?
He was taken off Premier League selection straight away. It was almost three months before he refereed a top-flight game again, and he didn’t return to the full rotation until February. The road back to the VAR room was longer still: six and a half months, with a couple of FA Cup ties first and Michael Oliver beside him as support VAR.
England worked with a sports psychologist, and leaned on his family, his friends and Pro Ref, the referees’ body. “It’s about perspective as well,” he said. “There’s a danger that we can think we’re saving lives at times, but we also realise how important it is. I remained as focused as I could be, working hard, trusting myself, because for all that decision in the Liverpool-Tottenham game, I’ve made hundreds of other decisions that are correct.”
From the lowest point to the FA Cup final
The comeback has been some story. In May he was the VAR who ruled out West Ham’s stoppage-time equaliser against Arsenal on review, a call dubbed the biggest VAR decision ever, and six days later he refereed Manchester City’s 1-0 win over Chelsea in the FA Cup final. He called that “the pinnacle as a referee”.
He has since reached 100 top-flight games, and at a referees’ camp at Loughborough, Professional Referee Group director Hugh Dallas called him forward as someone who had “become a role model”. After 10 Conference League and six Europa League appointments, he was named as the VAR for Galatasaray against Stuttgart on Tuesday, his first Champions League game in the video room.
It’s a long way from Royston, the village outside Barnsley where he refereed his first match. He qualified at 15, coached at Barnsley’s academy while refereeing on Saturdays, made the Premier League as an assistant, then went back to the National League as a referee in 2015, aged 28. Within four and a half years he had his first Premier League game.
Why the Diaz call still matters to Spurs fans
For Liverpool, that night is still a grievance. For Spurs fans it’s a win that will always carry an asterisk in someone else’s eyes, and it is still one of the biggest VAR blunders the Premier League has seen.
England’s point that referees don’t switch off after a bad call rings true. “It spoils your weekend if you make a decision that’s had a big impact in the game,” he said. Fair play to him for going back down the levels, working his way up again and talking about it this openly. VAR is still part of every Tottenham game, too: it turned Jean-Philippe Mateta’s yellow into a red in the record-breaking 2-0 win over Crystal Palace, and De Zerbi’s side head to Elland Road next, as we set out in our Leeds vs Tottenham preview. Whoever is in the hub that day, the hope is for a quiet one.
