The organisation in charge of referees (PGMOL) said that during Saturday’s game between Brighton and Tottenham, Brighton should have been given a penalty because of the tackle done by Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg to Kaoru Mitoma. It looked like Hojbjerg touched Mitoma, but the referee didn’t call it as such or ask for assistance from VAR. In the end, Tottenham won 2-1 thanks to Harry Kane’s late goal.
The Chief of the Professional Game Match Officials (PGMOL), Howard Webb, has spoken to some high-ranking people from Brighton and admitted that he made a mistake in their game. If he hadn’t done so, Brighton would have been in 6th place and just one point behind Tottenham Hotspur with two extra matches left to play. After the match ended, Lewis Dunk, who is the captain of Brighton’s team, was very angry about not getting awarded a penalty.
“Why bother using VAR if it doesn’t stop people from making bad decisions?” The defender asked. Chris Sutton, a former Premier League Striker now working on SportNewsCenter, argued that the visitors were “cheated”. He then added, “The referee is gonna be sorry for what they did! That’s really bad.”
PGMOL (a governing body of soccer) said sorry to Brighton, following some wrong decisions made in their match against Crystal Palace back in February. They also apologized after an incident with someone named Solly March in a game versus Aston Villa before the World Cup.
Brighton asked for explanations related to 5 significant calls that were done on Saturday’s game; which included a penalty claim when Dunk’s shirt was pulled, and two goals scored by Brighton were not counted due to handball.
Brighton are confused about why their coach De Zerbi was given a red card since he was trying to make the conflict between the two coaching staffs on the sidelines end. The same punishment (a red card) also happened to Spurs interim head coach Cristian Stellini.
