Ghost Goal - Incidents at Club Level

Incidents At Club Level

A few months prior to the incident at Anfield, Pedro Mendes of Tottenham Hotspur caught Manchester United's goalkeeper Roy Carroll off his line with a shot from 55 yards out, in the 89th minute of a Premier League match in January 2005. Carroll unconvincingly caught the shot and spilled the ball over his shoulder and a few yards over the goal line, before scooping the ball back into play. Referee Mark Clattenburg and his officials were unable to determine whether the ball had crossed the line and the game finished goalless.

Referee Stuart Attwell awarded a goal to Reading against Watford in an English Football League Championship match in September 2008 - despite the ball having passed wide of the goal, meaning his assistant should have awarded a corner kick; the match finished 2–2. A similar incident happened in a German 2. Fußball-Bundesliga match between MSV Duisburg and FSV Frankfurt when Christian Tiffert took a shot that hit the crossbar and landed 1.5 m outside of the goal-line yet was still awarded as a goal.

Conversely, during an English Championship game in August 2009, Crystal Palace's Freddie Sears put the ball in the net, hitting the stanchion at the back of the goal, but rapidly bounced out. A goal was not awarded. This is not the first time that such an incident has occurred in a match involving the London club, however; during a match away to Coventry City on 6 September 1980, Clive Allen took a free-kick which thumped against the right-hand stanchion inside the goal (from Allen's view) before coming back out again. After much arguing and consulting with his assistant, the referee decided that the ball had not crossed the line.

Another notable ghost goal in England came in a game between Bolton Wanderers and Queen's Park Rangers on 10 March 2012, when QPR's Clint Hill headed the ball in from close range, crossing the line by a couple of yards, before keeper Ádám Bogdán was able to palm the ball onto the crossbar and out. The goal was not awarded. The Football Association subsequently called for goal-line technology to be implemented as soon as possible.

On 15 April 2012, in Chelsea's FA Cup semi-final against Tottenham Hotspur, referee Martin Atkinson awarded Chelsea a goal resulting from a 49th minute shot by Juan Mata. Atkinson ruled that the shot had crossed the line, despite replays confirming that several Tottenham players had successfully blocked the effort at a point several yards in front of the goal-line. John Terry, the Chelsea player with the clearest view of the "goal" from his vantage point on the ground, admitted uncertainty: “I thought it hit me, if I'm honest. I don't think it did, I thought it stayed out, but I've not seen it on the replay.”

On 17 March 2013, another phantom goal was inexplicably given during a Spanish third division game between Quintanar del Rey and Toledo. A Quintanar player lashed a shot from distance which hit the underside of the bar and then safely be cleaned up by the opposition defense. Without a single appeal about the ball crossing the line had been made by the Quintanar players, the match continued after the Toledo goalkeeper collected the loose ball. But, for reasons known only to himself, the referee decided to award the goal.