Referees have always made mistakes. That's football. What's harder to swallow is when those mistakes don't just cost a goal — they cost a title. The Premier League has had its share of genuine disasters, and some of them remain genuinely difficult to believe, even with the footage right in front of you.
The blunders that actually changed things
Start with Pedro Mendes in 2005. Tottenham at Old Trafford, Mendes launches one from near the halfway line, Roy Carroll fumbles it over his own line by what replays show was at least a foot — and the referee waves play on. No goal. In 2005, there was no goal-line technology, no VAR, just a linesman who missed it completely. The commentator called it "a travesty, an absolute travesty." He wasn't wrong.
Then there's the beach ball. Yes, really. In 2009, Darren Bent's shot for Sunderland deflected off a large red beach ball that a supporter had thrown onto the pitch inside Liverpool's penalty area. FIFA law is unambiguous — play stops, foreign object removed. The referee did nothing. Bent's shot hit the beach ball, wrong-footed the keeper, and Sunderland won 1-0. The beach ball now sits in the National Football Museum. Liverpool got nothing.
Drogba's offside goal at Old Trafford in 2010 is the one that still makes Ferguson's quotes worth reading back. Chelsea were 1-0 up when Drogba received from Kalou while clearly several yards offside, then finished clinically. "The linesman is right in front of Drogba and he gets it wrong," Ferguson said afterward. Chelsea won the match 2-1 and the title by a single point. That one call sits right at the center of it.
VAR was supposed to fix this
It hasn't, entirely. Three of the six biggest blunders here happened in the VAR era, which tells you something about the limits of technology when the humans operating it aren't concentrating.
The Luis Díaz incident in 2023 is almost too absurd to explain with a straight face. Díaz scored against Spurs, the assistant flagged offside — incorrectly. VAR checked it, confirmed it was onside, but then somehow relayed a "check complete" message that was interpreted as confirmation of the original offside call. The goal stayed disallowed. Liverpool lost 2-1 and dropped two points they should never have dropped.
That same season, VAR official Mr. Mason checked a Brentford equalizer against Arsenal without actually drawing the offside line for Christian Nørgaard — the player who was visibly offside before assisting Ivan Toney's goal. No line drawn means no check conducted. The goal stood. Arsenal drew 1-1 and lost two points to an error so basic it barely seems real.
And then Rodri's handball against Everton in 2022. Ball hits the arm below the sleeve line inside the penalty box, VAR looks at it, no penalty given. Referees' chief Mike Riley admitted it was a blunder. Everton lost 1-0. Manchester City won the title by one point over Liverpool. That missed penalty call sits in the ledger of one of the closest title races in recent memory.
- Pedro Mendes ghost goal (2005): Ball clearly over the line at Old Trafford. No goal given. No technology to catch it.
- Beach ball goal (2009): Sunderland beat Liverpool 1-0 with a goal that deflected off a fan's beach ball on the pitch.
- Drogba offside goal (2010): Chelsea won the title by one point. This goal was part of the margin.
- Rodri handball (2022): VAR checked and missed it. City won the league by one point over Liverpool.
- Luis Díaz VAR blunder (2023): A correctly onside goal ruled out due to a communication error in the VAR room.
- Mason forgets VAR lines (2023): Nørgaard offside in the buildup, no line drawn, goal given. Arsenal drop two points.
Half of these happened after VAR was introduced to eliminate exactly this kind of thing. Anyone pricing Arsenal or Liverpool futures this season should factor in that the margin for officiating error apparently hasn't shrunk as much as advertised. Ferguson's quote from 2010 covers most of them just fine: the quality of the officials has cost teams. Repeatedly.
