Referees make mistakes. That's accepted. What's harder to swallow is when those mistakes hand out or steal points in title races — and the Premier League has a longer list of those moments than it should.
VAR was meant to fix this. It has, in places. But it's also introduced an entirely new category of catastrophic error, which is something nobody asked for. Here are six referee blunders from the Premier League era that genuinely mattered — not just to the teams involved, but to how entire seasons ended.
The goals that should never have stood — or been ruled out
Start with Pedro Mendes in 2005. Tottenham at Old Trafford, and Mendes launches a lob from near the halfway line. It bounces behind Roy Carroll and clearly crosses the line by a foot. Carroll scrambles it back out. The referee sees nothing. Not given. The match commentator called it "a travesty, an absolute travesty" — and he wasn't wrong. Goal-line technology didn't exist yet, which made moments like this inevitable. That's why it was eventually introduced.
Sunderland's beach ball goal against Liverpool in 2009 belongs in a different category entirely — the comedy category. Darren Bent's volley deflected off a large red beach ball that had been thrown onto the pitch inside Liverpool's penalty area. FIFA law is unambiguous: foreign objects on the pitch mean the game stops. The referee did nothing. The goal stood. Sunderland won 1-0. The beach ball is now in the National Football Museum, which feels appropriate.
Then there's Drogba's offside goal at Old Trafford in 2010 — the one that left Ferguson incandescent. Drogba was clearly yards offside when he received the pass from Kalou and finished. The linesman, standing right in front of the play, missed it completely. Chelsea won 2-1. At the end of that season, Chelsea pipped United to the title by a single point. Ferguson didn't mince words afterward: "The linesman is right in front of Drogba and he gets it wrong... The quality of the officials has cost us." Hard to argue.
When VAR made everything worse
The Luis Díaz incident in October 2023 was something else. Díaz scored what looked like a perfectly good opening goal against Tottenham. The assistant referee flagged offside — incorrectly. The VAR team confirmed the goal was onside, but somehow misheard the on-field decision as "goal given" rather than "offside." So they sent through a check-complete message, thinking they were confirming an onside goal. They were actually confirming an offside one. By the time anyone realised, play had restarted and it was too late to intervene. Liverpool lost 2-1. A goal that everyone in the VAR room knew was legal was ruled out anyway due to a communication failure.
The Rodri handball against Everton in 2022 is a different kind of infuriating. Manchester City led 1-0 late on when Rodri controlled the ball with his arm in City's own penalty area. The replays were clear — ball on arm, below the sleeve line, in the box. VAR checked it. No penalty given. Referees' chief Mike Riley later acknowledged it as a significant error. Everton dropped two points. More consequentially, City beat Liverpool to the title that season by exactly one point.
And then there's the Mason incident in 2023. Brentford equalised against Arsenal, with Christian Nørgaard in an offside position before making the assist for Ivan Toney's goal. VAR official Mr. Mason reviewed a potential earlier infringement in the buildup — but simply forgot to draw the digital offside line to check Nørgaard's position. He didn't check the relevant offside. The goal stood. Arsenal dropped two points in what ended 1-1.
Three of the six blunders above came in the VAR era. The technology catches a lot — but when it fails, it tends to fail spectacularly, with the added indignity of everyone watching it happen in slow motion and still getting the wrong answer. Arsenal and Liverpool bettors who've had results flipped by officiating errors know the feeling. So do their managers, though they're usually less quotable about it than Ferguson was.
