SOME years ago I complained in my weekly column about Match of the Day making a selling point out of controversial incidents in matches they showed.

“Seven games tonight and five controversial decisions, you must watch,” without anyone qualified to discuss them, only ex-footballers with scant knowledge of the Laws.

To my surprise, I received a phone call from the producer of Match of the Day.

He informed me that having discussed my column at their Monday meeting, they agreed to ask Keith Hackett, head of Premier League referees, if he could provide some educational pieces, to include in the programme.

When nothing happened, I e-mailed Keith who told me, he had not received any such approach.

I mention this because we are still receiving misinformation from the programme’s pundits. Take the Spurs v Liverpool match.

The ball was played through to Harry Kane who was in an offside position, but a Liverpool defender stuck out a foot trying to prevent it getting through.

We heard the assistant referee tell Jon Moss, the referee, that Kane was offside, but he couldn’t tell from his position if the Liverpool player had touched the ball.

The referee, better placed, decided he had, so not offside.

The situation is that if the defender had stood still and the ball deflected off him, Kane would have been given offside once he became involved in active play.

However, the defender tried to play the ball, which changes things. If he touched the ball, Kane could not be given offside, as the ball had not last been played by a member of his own team.

To be fair to the BBC, the presenter read a paper on the Law, which proved the correctness of the referee’s action.

Pundit Jermaine Jenas, however, said that was not the point.

Kane was clearly offside, so the assistant referee should have raised his flag immediately the pass was made. No he shouldn’t.

All assistant referees are trained to ‘wait and see’ what happens, as it’s not an offence to be in an offside position.