Sergey Shebek: "Again this same pair distorted the course of the match"

Former FIFA referee Sergey Shebek drew attention to the unsatisfactory refereeing of Anastasia Romanyuk in tandem with VAR referee Alexander Омельченко.

Not long ago they worked on the match of the 9th round of the Ukrainian championship "Veres" - "Zarya" (2:1), in which a goal for the home team was disallowed, and yesterday this same pair of referees officiated the match of the 12th round of the competition "Karpaty" - "Levyy Bereg" (3:0), and this time a penalty was awarded against the visiting team with the score at 1:0.

"Romanyuk definitely made a mistake by awarding a penalty against the Kyiv team. The score was 1:0, and with her incorrect whistle, she distorted the further course of the match. Why did she make such a decision? Apparently, from her position, it seemed to her that during the cross, the ball hit the defender's hand directly. If that were the case, then one could support such a decision. But the ball first hit the body of the defending player, and then ricocheted off to the bent arm. The distance is small, and the arm is in a natural position. And this is not a violation of the rules.

And why didn’t VAR referee Omelychenko come to assist? After all, he saw from different angles and understood that this was not a penalty.

Now let's go back to the match of the 9th round "Veres" - "Zarya". The on-field referee was Romanyuk, and the VAR referee was Omelychenko. In that match, Anastasia disallowed a clear goal scored by the Lugansk team. Later, her mistake was confirmed by Rizzoli, who posed the question: why didn’t Omelychenko intervene and didn’t invite the referee to the monitor?

And here again is this same pair. Romanyuk's mistake, and the stubborn silence of Omelychenko. Only two rounds have passed - and again the responsibility that is shared between the two. One could also add the assistant referee who, from his position, saw everything clearly, but also did not intervene to assist the referee. After all, a team of referees goes out to the game, which in such moments should act synchronously, so that there are no mistakes,” said Shebek.