The Dubious Goals Committee is a committee

Committee

A committee is a type of small deliberative assembly that is usually intended to remain subordinate to another, larger deliberative assembly—which when organized so that action on committee requires a vote by all its entitled members, is called the "Committee of the Whole"...

 within the Premier League, the top level of association football in England

England

England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...

, which adjudicates

Adjudication

Adjudication is the legal process by which an arbiter or judge reviews evidence and argumentation including legal reasoning set forth by opposing parties or litigants to come to a decision which determines rights and obligations between the parties involved....

 in any instance where the identity of the scorer

Score (gaming)

In games, score refers to an abstract quantity associated with a player or team. Score is usually measured in the abstract unit of points, and events in the game can raise or lower the score of different parties...

 of a goal

Goal (sport)

Goal refers to a method of scoring in many sports. It can also refer to the physical structure or area of the playing surface where scoring occurs....

 is disputed.

The Committee meets on an ad hoc

Ad hoc

Ad hoc is a Latin phrase meaning "for this". It generally signifies a solution designed for a specific problem or task, non-generalizable, and not intended to be able to be adapted to other purposes. Compare A priori....

 basis, whenever a disputed goal is brought to its attention. This is generally around three or four times each season

Season (sports)

In an organized sports league, a season is the portion of one year in which regulated games of the sport are in session. For example, in Major League Baseball, one season lasts approximately from April 1 through October 1; in Association football, it is generally from August until May In an...

.

Committee

The Committee is made up of three former football players or football officials. The identity of the Committee members at any given time is kept secret in order to protect Committee members from undue influence to make any particular decision.

Role of the Committee

The role of the Committee is solely to determine the identity of the goal scorer to be entered into the separate official records of that player, his club, and the league. It will therefore be noted that the Committee does not enquire into:

• whether a goal has been scored. This is a matter for the officials attending the match in question.
• assists
  Assist (football)
  In association football, an assist is a contribution by a player which helps to score a goal. Statistics for assists made by players may be kept officially by the organisers of a competition, or unofficially by, for example, journalists or organisers of fantasy football competitions...
  
  . These are attributed to players by their clubs.

There is no comparable body for other football leagues in the United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

. In all other football matches in the United Kingdom, the identity of the goalscorer is determined by the club that scored the goal.

Adjudication process

The adjudication process comprises the viewing of video evidence

Instant replay

Instant replay is the replaying of video footage of an event or incident very soon after it has occurred. In television broadcasting of sports events, instant replay is often used during live broadcast, to show a passage of play which was important or remarkable, or which was unclear on first...

 followed by discussion by the Committee members. The guiding principle when adjudicating is as follows:

"As a rule, if the initial attempt is goalbound it is credited to the player making the goal attempt. However if the deflection means that a wayward effort results in a goal then it is attributed to the player who had the last definitive touch of the ball."

Selected decisions

• Stephen Clemence
  Stephen Clemence
  Stephen Neal Clemence is a retired English football midfielder who last played for Leicester City where he was team captain....
  
   (o.g.) rather than Robin van Persie
  Robin van Persie
  Robin van Persie is a Dutch footballer who plays as a striker for Arsenal and the Dutch national team. He is a youth product of Feyenoord. Having joined Arsenal in 2004, Van Persie became the club captain on 16 August 2011...
  
   in Arsenal's 1–0 win over Birmingham City on 2 October 2005.
• Zurab Khizanishvili
  Zurab Khizanishvili
  Zurab Khizanishvili is a Georgian footballer who plays for Turkish club Kayserispor as a defender.-Early career:Khizanishvili started his career at Dinamo Tbilisi where he remained for just one season, before joining FC Tbilisi to improve his chances of playing regular first team football.In 1999...
  
   (o.g) replaces Joe Cole in Chelsea's 4–2 win over Blackburn Rovers on 29 October 2005.
• Peter Crouch
  Peter Crouch
  Peter James Crouch is an English footballer who plays as a striker for Premier League club Stoke City and the England national team.Crouch started his career as a trainee with Tottenham Hotspur...
  
   scored first goal for Liverpool against Wigan Athletic on 3 December 2005, as opposed to Mike Pollitt (o.g).
• Carlos Bocanegra
  Carlos Bocanegra
  Carlos Manuel Bocanegra is an American soccer player who plays for Scottish Premier League club Rangers and is the captain of the United States national team.-Chicago Fire:...
  
   (o.g) replaces Park Ji-Sung
  Park Ji-Sung
  Park Ji-Sung is a South Korean footballer who plays as a midfielder for English club Manchester United. He was also the captain of the South Korean national team until his retirement from international football...
  
   in Manchester United's 4–2 win over Fulham on 4 February 2006.
• Nani
  Nani
  -People:*Nani, a Portuguese footballer who plays for Manchester United*Gianluca Nani, former technical director at West Ham United*Nanabhoy Palkhivala, nicknamed Nani, an Indian jurist and economist*Nani Roma, a Spanish rally racing driver...
  
   replaces Manuel Almunia
  Manuel Almunia
  Manuel Almunia Rivero is a professional footballer. He plays as a goalkeeper for Arsenal.-Early career:Born in Pamplona, Navarre, Almunia started his senior career with Osasuna's reserve team in 1997, playing two seasons with the team in Segunda División B...
  
   (o.g.) in Manchester United's 3-1 win against Arsenal.
• Anton Ferdinand
  Anton Ferdinand
  Anton Julian Ferdinand is an English footballer who plays for Queens Park Rangers as a defender. He is the brother of Manchester United and England centre-back Rio Ferdinand and the cousin of former England striker Les Ferdinand and Southend United defender Kane Ferdinand. Like his brother, Anton...
  
   (o.g.) rather than Dimitar Berbatov
  Dimitar Berbatov
  Dimitar Ivanov Berbatov is a Bulgarian footballer who plays as a forward for Manchester United. He captained the Bulgarian national team from 2006 to 2010, and is its all-time leading goalscorer and has also won the Bulgarian Footballer of the Year a record seven times, surpassing the number of...
  
   in Sunderlands 0-2 loss at Manchester United.