WATCH – Am sorry Referee’s apologize to Arsenal fans after wrong Decision against Manchester City

Michael Oliver was wrong not to show Mateo Kovacic a red card, admits referees chief Howard Webb

Official’s error in Man City’s loss at Arsenal adds to clamour to stop referees moonlighting abroad: plus Webb on Liverpool Var fiasco

Michael Oliver should have shown Mateo Kovacic a second yellow card for this challenge on Declan Rice, according to Howard Webb

Howard Webb has admitted Michael Oliver was wrong not to send off Mateo Kovacic during Manchester City’s Premier League defeat at Arsenal.

Webb, the head of Professional Game Match Officials Limited, also broke his silence on the Liverpool offside goal fiasco at Tottenham but did not offer an apology.

According to Webb, Oliver should have shown City midfielder Kovacic a second yellow card for a scything down Declan Rice on Sunday. Webb said the official would not have been incorrect to issue a straight red to the same player for an earlier tackle on Martin Odegaard.

Webb analysed the controversy during Tuesday night’s episode of Match Officials Mic’d Up amid mounting calls for him to stop Premier League referees moonlighting in the United Arab Emirates or Saudi Arabia.

Dissecting Kovacic’s tackle on Odegaard, Webb said the video assistant referee would not have intervened if Oliver had brandished red.

“This is clearly a poor tackle and I’m pretty confident if a red card had been given by Michael Oliver on the day, it would’ve been a very straightforward ‘check complete’,” said Webb.

He added: “When he reflects on it, he’ll realise that the second one should have been a yellow card as well, which would have seen Kovacic sent off for two yellow cards, having been given the benefit of this particular decision here, which was borderline, the first one.”

Kovacic could also have been shown a straight red for this foul on Martin Odegaard, said Webb

Kovacic could also have been shown a straight red for this foul on Martin Odegaard, said Webb CREDIT: Reuters/David Klein

Oliver’s refusal to show Kovacic a second yellow card came days after he took charge of a match between Sharjah and Al-Ain in the UAE, a move that had already raised concerns given the country’s links with City

Any suggestion of conscious bias in Oliver’s performance on Sunday would be entirely baseless but the fact it could give rise even to the perception of a potential conflict of interest has sparked calls from fans for referees’ chief Webb to intervene.

Officials are already prevented from any involvement in the matches of clubs they support, or those teams’ arch rivals, and fan groups want a similar principle to apply when it comes to paid-for work outside their day jobs.

A spokesperson for the Arsenal Supporters Trust said: “Football relies on supporters having confidence in the integrity of the game’s decision making. So, when there is an inevitable perception issue, as in this case, it is important that it is addressed.”

Oliver’s presence in the UAE at the end of last month was made public when it emerged the Vars behind the Liverpool offside-goal fiasco, Darren England and Dan Cook, had also been part of the team that travelled there.

England and Cook’s involvement in Liverpool’s game at Tottenham Hotspur, and Oliver’s as fourth official, came just a day after they landed back in the UK following an eight-hour flight, raising questions about their workloads.

Luis Diaz’s wrongly disallowed goal at the Tottenham Hotspur Stadium sparked English football’s worst Var crisis and PGMOL announced as a result that there would be a “review” of the policy of allowing officials to oversee games in foreign countries.

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Malcolm Clarke, the chairman of the Football Supporters’ Association, said: “We don’t want referees to be tired when they’re refereeing games and we don’t want there to be any perceptions of possible bias.”

City’s primary link to the UAE is well-established, with their owner, Sheikh Mansour, being the country’s vice-president and deputy prime minister.

Less well known is that the UAE Pro League’s main sponsor is the Abu Dhabi National Oil Company (ADNOC), board members of which include City chairman Khaldoon Al-Mubarak, and that the UAE Football Association has held talks with City Football Group chief executive Ferran Soriano about a “framework of joint cooperation”.

Newcastle, meanwhile, are majority owned by Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, which this summer took control of the Saudi Premier League’s four founding clubs, including Cristiano Ronaldo’s Al-Nassr.

Webb did not address the moonlighting controversy on Tuesday but did analyse the Diaz incident, which he blamed on England “trying to be quick” in completing his offside check.

He made no public apology for the glaring gaffe but insisted “nobody’s more disappointed than the officials themselves”.

Tuesday’s programme also aired audio from the weekend’s games showing the lengths to which PGMOL had gone to avoid a repeat.