Howard Webb personally called Man United twice to apologise for Derby VAR blunder

Howard Webb personally telephoned Manchester United director of football Jason Wilcox and club secretary Rebecca Britain on two separate occasions to acknowledge a significant VAR error during the Manchester Derby earlier this season — one that allowed Erling Haaland’s winning goal to stand.

Haaland’s strike was initially ruled out for offside before a VAR review overturned the decision. However, the officials failed to account for Enzo Fernandez, who was in an offside position and whose presence should have kept the original call in place. Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL) confirmed an “error of judgement” in the immediate aftermath, but Webb has now disclosed the extent of his personal involvement in addressing the mistake.

“I called Jason Wilcox and Rebecca, acknowledging the error,” Webb told The Times. “People talk about apologies. We don’t often apologise but I did that one because the error was so impactful — and it wasn’t a judgment call.”

To explain how the officials missed what appeared to be an obvious factor, Webb drew on a well-known psychological experiment involving inattentional blindness — the tendency to overlook something in plain sight when attention is directed elsewhere.

“People can’t believe it when they see it. It’s like the gorilla,” he said, referencing the famous experiment in which participants fail to notice a person in a gorilla suit walking through a basketball game. “The gorilla banging his chest when the kids are playing basketball, hiding in plain sight. Someone had to say, ‘Look at the gorilla banging his chest!’ Which gorilla? Oh, that one.”

Following the match, PGMOL’s external consultant Inaki Vicandi Garrido reviewed the ruling and spoke with all officials involved. Referee Michael Oliver, VAR operator Matt Donohue, and assistant VAR Blake Antrobus were all part of those discussions. A video call with all PGMOL match officials was subsequently held ahead of the next round of Premier League fixtures, followed by a face-to-face meeting in which the incident was examined in detail.

The Haaland goal was not the only controversy from the fixture. Manchester City also lost Phil Foden to a first-half red card after he lashed out at United captain Bruno Fernandes, an incident that itself prompted debate after Fernandes appeared to swipe at Foden before the reaction that led to the dismissal.