PRO admits ‘egregious officiating error’ in Gotham FC vs. Angel City match

When one mistake is actually three mistakes

The Professional Referees Association (PRO) isn’t mincing words after a major mistake over the weekend.

PRO on Monday released a statement admitting to what it called “an egregious officiating error” in Angel City’s 3-1 win at NJ/NY Gotham FC, a call that deprived Gotham of a clear goal early in a match that was effectively a must-win for them to keep slim playoff hopes alive.

In the 12th minute, Taylor Smith played a ball down the right flank, where both Midge Purce and Ifeoma Onumonu were making runs. Purce got to the pass first, cutting the ball back to Onumonu. Onumonu tried to sweep the ball home first-time, but her shot appeared to take a hefty deflection off of Angel City captain Ali Riley.

Nonetheless, it spun up and over DiDi Haracic, bouncing off the back post and over the goal line. Haracic grabbed it, but that’s where the confusion really kicked in.

Referee Brandon Stevis, after a moment, gave Gotham a corner kick. Which is to say, the call was that there was a deflection off of Riley, and that the ball did cross the endline, but it did not enter the goal.

While Onumonu’s shot did have plenty of spin on it, the amount of movement it would take for the ball to have looped up, gone completely over the endline somewhere above the crossbar, bend back into the field of play, and then hit the post, would seem to require the laws of physics to not actually hold.

Currently, there are no known reports that the laws of physics break down inside Red Bull Arena.

With Onumonu’s shot not doing anything impossible in our reality, that effectively means we have several different errors resulting in the play ending in a corner kick. The first is straightforward: The ball clearly goes over the line, so the call on the field should be a goal.

But, if the referee has decided that there’s no goal, why would play even stop? If it’s not a goal, Haracic is saving a shot that hit the post, so there’s no reason to stop play at all. It’s either a goal, or the game should just continue on.

And then to add onto that conundrum, the ball only ever crosses the endline once…when it enters the goal. It’s never close to going out for a corner. Of all three mistakes, this one’s the furthest from being true. At least you can understand how, on a fast-moving play, a referee or assistant referee aren’t in position to see a shot cross the line. NWSL doesn’t have VAR, this kind of missed call will happen. But…a corner? How?

These are questions PRO appears to have been asking internally, leading to the following statement:

During the National Women’s Soccer League match between NJ/NY Gotham FC and Angel City FC on August 28, an egregious officiating error was made in the 12th minute when a goal was incorrectly not awarded to NJ/NY Gotham FC after the ball had crossed the goal line between the goal posts.

The match officials misjudged where the ball had crossed the goal line, and wrongly awarded a corner kick to NJ/NY Gotham FC.

The officials involved in this error have been removed from their next PRO assignment(s).

While PRO deserves credit for addressing the mistake quickly and clearly, it won’t help a Gotham team that desperately needs to catch a break. Within five minutes of this play, Angel City took the lead, and by the 31st minute, the visitors were up by three and effectively coasting to a win that may have major consequences in the NWSL playoff chase.

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