The 5 Biggest VAR Failures in Premier League History
Updated September 16, 2026
Updated September 16, 2026
Premier League referees have apologised for plenty of VAR mistakes. But after the controversy surrounding Erling Haaland's incorrectly awarded winner, Enzo Maresca would like Manchester City to receive one of their own.
The latest VAR controversy arrived in Sunday's Manchester derby, when Erling Haaland scored the only goal in City's 1-0 victory at Old Trafford. Haaland himself was onside, but Enzo Fernández was in an offside position and attempted to play the cross before the ball reached his teammate.
Pro Ref, formerly PGMOL, subsequently acknowledged that VAR failed to properly consider Fernández's impact on Lisandro Martínez and should have recommended an on-field review. Chief refereeing officer Howard Webb later described the mistake as a case of VAR developing "tunnel vision."
Maresca's response was to rewind three years. In January 2023, Marcus Rashford ran onto a through ball from an offside position against City without touching it. Bruno Fernandes arrived from an onside position and scored, with officials deciding Rashford had not interfered sufficiently for the goal to be disallowed. United went on to win 2-1.
Maresca, who was part of Pep Guardiola's staff at the time, pointed out this week that City are "still waiting" for an equivalent apology. It is another reminder that VAR's Premier League history has contained mistakes far more serious than marginal interpretations. Since the system arrived in 2019/20, there have been occasions where officials checked the wrong player, misunderstood another official's decision or simply failed to use the technology available to them. Here are five of the biggest.
Manchester United 2-1 Manchester City, January 14, 2023
The incident Maresca has dragged back into the spotlight remains one of the Premier League's most contentious interpretations of offside interference. Casemiro played the ball towards Rashford, who was clearly beyond City's defensive line. Rashford chased it for several seconds but never actually touched it, allowing Fernandes to arrive and score.
The assistant initially raised his flag before referee Stuart Attwell eventually awarded the goal. The explanation was that Rashford had neither played the ball nor prevented a City defender from playing it. Former Premier League referee Dermot Gallagher was among those who subsequently argued that it should have been called offside because Rashford's actions affected City's defenders. Even United manager Erik ten Hag admitted he would have been unhappy had his team conceded the same goal.
The similarity with the Fernández incident in Sunday's derby explains Maresca's frustration. Both involved an offside attacker moving towards the ball without touching it and a judgment over whether that movement affected a defender. The difference is that Pro Ref has explicitly acknowledged the 2026 decision as an error, while this incident stil rankles with City fans to this day.
Everton 0-1 Manchester City, February 26, 2022
Some VAR controversies remain debatable years later. This one resulted in the head of the refereeing body personally apologising, and could well have dictated the destination of the Premier League title.
Everton were trailing City 1-0 when the ball bounced towards Rodri inside the penalty area and struck his arm. Referee Paul Tierney allowed play to continue, while VAR Chris Kavanagh decided there was insufficient reason to overturn him. Then-PGMOL managing director Mike Riley subsequently called both Everton chairman Bill Kenwright and manager Frank Lampard to apologise for the decision.
Its place on this list is strengthened by the circumstances around it. Everton were fighting relegation and City were involved in an exceptionally tight title race. City ultimately won the Premier League with 93 points to Liverpool's 92. That does not mean awarding Everton a penalty would necessarily have changed the champion, but it illustrates how consequential an acknowledged VAR mistake can potentially become.
Arsenal 1-1 Brentford, February 11, 2023
VAR exists partly to remove obvious factual mistakes from decisions such as offside. In this case, the problem was more basic: the decisive check was not properly completed. Ivan Toney equalised for Brentford after Christian Nørgaard returned the ball into the penalty area. VAR Lee Mason spent time examining a potential offside involving Ethan Pinnock earlier in the move but failed to correctly check Nørgaard before Toney's goal.
PGMOL acknowledged a "significant error" and Howard Webb contacted Arsenal. Reports at the time explained that the necessary offside guidelines had not been applied to the decisive phase. It was an extraordinary failure because there was no complicated handball interpretation or debate over the threshold for a foul. The system simply failed to complete the factual check it was designed to perform.
Arsenal were leading the Premier League at the time and eventually finished five points behind Manchester City. Again, it would be wrong to reduce a 38-game title race to one refereeing decision, but dropping two points because of an acknowledged VAR error inevitably magnified its significance. Remarkably, the same weekend also produced another offside malfunction when Brighton's Pervis Estupiñán had a goal incorrectly disallowed against Crystal Palace because the VAR line was drawn from the wrong Palace defender.
Aston Villa 0-0 Sheffield United, June 17, 2020
Technically, the original failure belonged to goal-line technology. VAR then had the opportunity to rescue the decision and did not. Aston Villa goalkeeper Ørjan Nyland carried Oliver Norwood's free kick across his own goal line, but referee Michael Oliver received no signal on his watch.
Hawk-Eye later explained that an unprecedented combination of Nyland, a Villa player and the goalpost had obscured the ball from its cameras. The company apologised after what it said was the first such failure in more than 9,000 matches using the system.
That should not necessarily have been the end of the story. VAR was permitted to review goals, but because the on-field officials had received no goal-line technology signal, the video official chose not to intervene. Television replays showed the ball clearly behind the line, and the match finished 0-0.
Villa eventually survived relegation by one point, with Bournemouth and Watford both finishing immediately below them. It is impossible to know how the remaining season would have unfolded had Sheffield United been awarded the goal, but few technology failures in Premier League history have produced a more uncomfortable final table.
Tottenham 2-1 Liverpool, September 30, 2023
No Premier League VAR failure better demonstrates how a correct review can still produce the wrong decision. Luis Díaz scored for Liverpool and was incorrectly flagged offside. VAR Darren England checked the footage, established that Díaz was actually onside, and said "check complete."
However, herein lay the problem. England mistakenly believed the on-field decision had been goal, meaning his confirmation that the check was complete actually told referee Simon Hooper to stick with the incorrect offside call. By the time the VAR team realised what had happened, Tottenham had restarted the game. PGMOL described it as a "significant human error", released the audio publicly and later said a review had identified changes needed to prevent the same sequence happening again. The Premier League said the incident exposed "systemic weaknesses in the VAR process."
That makes it different from almost every subjective VAR controversy. There was no disagreement about whether Díaz was onside. The technology worked, but the humans operating it were unable to clearly communicate the result to one another, and a perfectly legitimate goal had been disallowed.
Seven seasons after VAR entered the Premier League, the technology is considerably more sophisticated. Semi-automated offside can resolve positional decisions that once required officials to manually position lines, while refereeing authorities now release audio and publicly explain major decisions.
Yet Sunday's Manchester derby showed why mistakes continue. The technology correctly established that Haaland was onside. The failure came when the VAR concentrated on that question and did not adequately assess Fernández's involvement. Webb's description of "tunnel vision" could apply to several entries on this list.
That is also why Maresca's comparison with 2023 is so interesting. VAR can establish where a player is standing with extraordinary precision, but determining whether an offside player has affected an opponent remains a judgment call made by humans. The cameras may have changed, but the fundamental problem has not.
