BREAKING: Darren England set to return to VAR duty seven months after infamous error during Spurs vs Liverpool

Premier League referee Darren England is all set to make his return to his job after a seven-month hiatus. England will be deployed as the VAR during the West Ham United vs Fulham match on Sunday, April 14 at the London Stadium.

Stuart Atwell will lead the on-field team as the main referee, with assistants Harry Lennard and James Mainwaring joining him on the sidelines. Michael Salisbury will be the fourth official.

Darren England’s infamous decision during Spurs vs Liverpool

Darren England’s last match as the VAR could very well have been his last-ever instance officiating a game. He was responsible for a grave error as he rushed on-field referee Simon Hooper and disallowed a perfectly legal goal in the process.

Spurs won that game 2-1 against Liverpool but the outcome could have been very different has Luis Diaz’s goal stood. The Columbian was played through by Mohamed Salah and was onside by a nearly a foot. However, England hurried his colleagues into avoiding the check as he told Hooper, “Check complete!”, as the game progressed and no review was taken.

Darren England’s colleagues pointed the mistake out to him but it was too late. His role was significantly reduced following the incident, with England being eased into being the fourth official for Brentford vs Burnley in October. He has since been assigned just six Premier League games, with the latest being Manchester City’s 4-1 win against Aston Villa.

How can this be prevented?

Human error has been the downfall of VAR, which was supposed to be one of the revolutionary tech additions to the sport. However, spectators, players and coaches will not have to face much more of these in the Premier League, starting from next season.

The league announced that it would be introducing a semi-automated offside system starting from the 2024-25 season. This was the same technology that was used during the 2022 FIFA World Cup and has also been used in the Serie A as well as the Champions League.

If the system works to perfection, human intervention could be needed just to recalibrate the instrument each game, or to carry out functionality checks. Apart from that, this could be the best way to eliminate poor performances by referees from the game.

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