Former FIFA referee comments on the mistake of the Obolon vs Oleksandriya match referee

The final round of the Ukrainian championship, which decided the fate of the bottom of the table, was overshadowed by a gross mistake by Dnipro referee Vitaliy Romanov. No wonder, after the game, the head coach of the Brewers, Valeriy Ivashchenko, voiced his complaints about the arbitration:

"Everything could have turned out differently if the referee had awarded an obvious penalty for a handball by the visiting defender in the penalty area in the first half, when the score was still tied," he said. This is not the first time when, in my opinion, Obolon suffers from the bias of referees and I don't know how to deal with this disaster."

The episode occurred in the 7th minute of the match, when the home team's captain Ihor Medynskyi responded to a diagonal cross to the edge of the Oleksandriya penalty area. Rushing to the ball on the left flank, he sent it towards the goal with one touch, but the Portuguese defender of Oleksandriya Miguel Campos made a hand save. Romanov and his VAR assistants did not see this as a violation of the rules, causing Obolon to react.

Was the decision of the representatives of the football Themis correct? Sport.ua addressed this question to former FIFA referee Oleg Orekhov.

- In my opinion, it was a penalty. I understand that there is a small distance between the opponents, but these are not coordinated actions of the defender, who, when he turned away from the ball, left his hand at a distance from his body. In Ukraine, eleven-metre penalties are awarded or not awarded selectively for similar situations. A fan, club representative or player is always nervous, but when there is consistency in decision-making, it is easier to explain their fairness. And VAR reacted too simply: the referees resolved the situation by communication, without involving the referee in the video review.