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ITV’s disastrous World Cup own-goal deprived 1.5 million England fans from witnessing Steven Gerrard’s strike in Saturday’s 1-1 World Cup draw with the USA.

ITV’s high definition channel inexplicably cut from coverage of the game after three minutes and 26 seconds to an advert before going blank.

By the time viewers returned to the game nearly 20 seconds later, Gerrard was already scampering across the turf to celebrate his strike

Around 9% of the 16.5million audience tuned into ITV1 HD for the game but the channel have blamed the disaster on “human error” at an outside company.

ITV say that Technicolor, the company broadcasting the match, should take the blame.

"ITV Sport's production team in South Africa, who have produced high quality coverage throughout the tournament, were in no way responsible," a spokesman said.

Richard Cross, ITV's group technology director, added: "We apologise unreservedly to viewers for the unacceptable interruption to high definition coverage of the match.

“We met with Technicolor first thing this morning to put in place measures to address the issue and to ensure that Technicolor takes the appropriate action with immediate effect."

Only last year, ITV once again hit the headlines for the wrong reasons after cutting to adverts in the 188th minute of Everton’s dramatic FA Cup victory over Liverpool with viewers missing Dan Gosling’s late winner.

Meanwhile, in a statement, Technicolor apologised to fans who had missed Gerrard’s early strike in Rustenburg.

"During the England vs USA World Cup group match on Saturday, there was a transmission error affecting the ITV HD channel.

"This error was corrected within 20 seconds. The SD [standard definition] coverage was uninterrupted and executed without operating issues.

"This error originated from the London play-out centre where Technicolor provides broadcast and television play-out services on behalf of ITV.

"Technicolor deeply regrets this incident and its impact on ITV and its viewers. Investigations are continuing as a matter of utmost urgency in order to ensure that the issues are addressed with immediate effect."