📅 September 15, 2026

Pro Ref Admits Haaland’s Winner Was Wrong. After Rashford in 2023, Webb Said the Call Would Change

By Mav Jones · Manchester United fan writer

Erling Haaland’s derby winner shouldn’t have stood, and the referees’ body said so within hours. Pro Ref, the organisation that was PGMOL until this summer, contacted United on Sunday night to acknowledge “an error of judgement” over Enzo Fernandez’s offside. The result stands. City keep the three points, United stay on four points from four games, and a review will take place.

The mistake isn’t new. The same law, the same “he didn’t touch the ball” reasoning and the same fixture gave United a goal in January 2023 that shouldn’t have counted either. Howard Webb, who runs the referees now as he did then, said three weeks later that the call should have been offside and that “you’d probably see a different outcome now”. Three and a half years on, it was the same outcome.

What Pro Ref admitted

The on-field decision was offside against Haaland. VAR checked it, found Haaland onside, and then: “In the same attack, it was established that Enzo Fernandez did not play the ball and therefore that makes any offside offence subjective, however, on this occasion, the VAR did not recognise the likely impact of his position and should have recommended an on-field review.”

Michael Oliver was the referee, Matt Donohue the VAR and Blake Antrobus his assistant. Haaland was played onside by Patrick Dorgu. Fernandez was not. He was ahead of Haaland in the box, he went for Gvardiol’s cross with his head and missed it, and his movement put Lisandro Martinez off the ball. Neville on Sky: “There is no doubt that Enzo is attempting to play the ball.” Micah Richards: “How you can not say Enzo Fernandez is challenging for the ball.”

Law 11 has a clause written for exactly that. A player in an offside position commits an offence by “clearly attempting to play a ball which is close when this action impacts on an opponent”. Touching the ball appears nowhere in it. The Premier League Match Centre’s first explanation, that Fernandez “didn’t play the ball”, answered a question the law doesn’t ask, and Carrick called it what it was: “If that’s the interpretation of not interfering in the game now, that’s really worrying for me. It’s a staggering explanation.”

The order of events makes it worse

Oliver’s team had already disallowed the goal. VAR’s intervention is what turned no goal into a goal. Donohue checked the objective part, Haaland’s position against Dorgu’s boot, found the line in City’s favour and overturned. The subjective part, Fernandez attacking the ball from an offside position, was never sent to the monitor.

VAR exists to stop clear and obvious errors. Here it created one, from a correct outcome reached for the wrong reason. A review that looks only at the line it was asked about, and not at the offside player going for the same cross, isn’t a check of the goal.

14 January 2023: the same call, going United’s way

City led through Jack Grealish’s header on 60. On 78, Casemiro played a long ball through the middle. Marcus Rashford was offside when it was hit, clearly, and he chased it for 30 metres towards the box with Manuel Akanji tracking him. Rashford never touched it. Bruno Fernandes arrived behind him and scored.

The assistant’s flag went up. Stuart Attwell spoke to him and gave the goal, on the basis that Rashford hadn’t touched the ball or affected a defender’s ability to play it. VAR, in the Premier League’s words at the time, “could not find evidence of clear and obvious error so supports the goal”. Rashford scored the winner minutes later and United won 2-1.

That goal shouldn’t have stood. Akanji: “He runs for 30 metres, he’s chasing the ball. I understand he doesn’t touch the ball, but for me it is clearly offside.” Guardiola said an offside player in front of the keeper who doesn’t touch a shot is “disallowed all the time”.

Webb went further. On 4 February 2023 he told Sky: “The game has told us that there’s an expectation that the situation should have led to an offside,” and “If that same circumstance happened again, you’d probably see a different outcome now based on all we’ve taken on board since then.” His reason is the one that applies on Sunday too: “Rashford followed the ball for quite some distance and got really close. In general terms, he probably impacts Akanji or the goalkeeper.”

In between, the strict reading did get used

It got used at the Etihad on 9 November 2025. Van Dijk headed in what would have been an equaliser against City, and the goal was ruled out because Andy Robertson, offside inside the six-yard box, ducked under the ball in front of Gianluigi Donnarumma. Robertson was getting out of its way, not playing it. Webb called the decision “not unreasonable”, arguing the duck affected “Donnarumma’s ability to dive towards the ball”. The Premier League’s Key Match Incidents panel later found the goal should have stood, while agreeing VAR was right not to step in on a purely subjective call.

Line the three up. In 2023 an attacker who chased the ball for 30 metres wasn’t judged to have affected anyone. In 2025 an attacker who ducked away from the ball was judged to have affected the keeper, and that was too strict. In 2026 an attacker who went for the ball with his head in front of a centre-back wasn’t judged to have affected anyone, and that was wrong. Webb’s promised change arrived once, on the call where it didn’t belong, and was gone again by the call where it did.

The law has four ways to interfere with an opponent without touching the ball, and every one of them depends on the words “clearly”, “obvious” or “impacts”. That’s where the inconsistency lives. City have been on the right end of the last two, which will feed every theory going. The simpler explanation is a subjective clause decided by whoever is in the VAR chair, with no fixed answer to what “impact” means.

What United get

A phone call and a review. No rule lets an acknowledged error change a result. Martinez: “Five or six people doing this kind of mistake in the Premier League is unacceptable. We have to go home with this injustice.”

Sunday still has two parts. The goal was wrong, and United also had 67 minutes against ten men and put three shots on target. Pro Ref’s admission settles the first. It doesn’t touch the second. The derby goal aggregate is 280-279 to United after 199 meetings. Without Donohue’s check it would still be 280-278, with a point on the board. Brighton visit Old Trafford in the Carabao Cup on Wednesday.

Sources: Pro Ref’s full statement, the match officials, Fernandez’s action and Neville’s and Richards’ comments from Sky Sports — Haaland goal decision an error of judgement, says Pro Ref. Dorgu playing Haaland onside, Fernandez’s attempted header and Martinez’s quote from Al Jazeera — What’s the VAR mistake controversy in Haaland’s goal. Carrick’s quote and the Law 11 clause as applied from The National — Should Haaland’s goal have been ruled out?. Law wording from IFAB — Law 11, Offside (2026/27). The PGMOL rebrand from The FA — New name for PGMO. The 2023 goal, Akanji’s and Guardiola’s comments from ABC — Manchester derby offside controversy; the officials and the Premier League’s 2023 explanation from ESPN’s VAR Review of the game, which refuses automated fetches and so is not linked. Webb’s 2023 comments from Sky Sports — Howard Webb on the Manchester derby offside controversy. Van Dijk’s disallowed goal and Webb’s view from Sky Sports — Webb says ‘not unreasonable’ to rule out Van Dijk header; the Key Match Incidents panel finding from Sports Illustrated — Premier League panel rule on Van Dijk’s disallowed goal. Sources give Rashford’s 2023 winner as the 81st or 82nd minute, so no minute is used. Accurate as of 14 September 2026.