VAR official who missed Haaland offside in Manchester derby returns to Premier League duty

Matt Donohue, the VAR official who failed to flag an offside Enzo Fernandez during Erling Haaland’s goal in Manchester City’s win at Old Trafford on September 13, has been reinstated to Premier League officiating and is scheduled to serve as assistant VAR for Saturday’s Championship fixture between Coventry and Fulham.

Donohue was left off the appointment list for three consecutive match rounds following the error, which drew widespread criticism after City’s controversial 3-0 derby victory over Manchester United. His colleague Blake Antrobus, who was also involved in the oversight, had already returned to action as an assistant referee in last Saturday’s match between Newcastle and Aston Villa.

Howard Webb, chief refereeing officer at Pro Ref, said Donohue had suffered from “tunnel vision” while assessing Haaland’s positioning, and acknowledged that the wider officiating team should have helped pull him out of that state.

During his absence from top-flight matches, Donohue continued to work in the English Football League, taking charge of Southampton vs Bolton last Saturday and Derby’s meeting with Wrexham on October 10.

In a separate officiating development, the Key Match Incidents panel has endorsed the VAR decision to send off Brighton defender Pascal Struijk against Sunderland on October 10, despite an independent regulatory commission subsequently rescinding the suspension after a successful wrongful dismissal appeal.

The five-member panel — comprising three former players and managers alongside representatives from the Premier League and Pro Ref — voted three to two in favour of the video official’s intervention to overturn the on-pitch call and issue a red card, ruling that the referee had erred in not dismissing Struijk for denying a clear goalscoring opportunity.

The Premier League, in publishing its round six evaluations, stressed that the KMI panel and the independent commission that serves as an appeals board are entirely separate bodies operating under distinct guidelines and frameworks — a distinction that helps explain how the two bodies reached conflicting conclusions on the same incident.