Ex-Newcastle United and Sunderland boss slams UEFA decision and calls for further action

Sam Allardyce has slammed the levels of officiating following Newcastle United’s controversial draw with PSG. The hosts were awarded a very late penalty after it was adjudged that Tino Livramento had handled the ball in the penalty area, despite the ball ricocheting off his chest before grazing his arm.

Despite not being given as a penalty on the field, VAR instructed the referee to have another look on the pitchside monitor before then pointing to the spot. The call was slammed almost immediately on social media whilst Ally McCoist on commentary blasted the decision, labelling it ‘a disgrace’. 

"It comes off his chest and hits his left elbow," McCoist told TNT Sports. "That is absolutely never a penalty. If we're giving penalty kicks for that in the biggest club competition on the planet, it's a disgrace.”

Speaking on the No Tippy Tappy Football Podcast, however, former Newcastle United and Sunderland boss Allardyce said: “The highest levels of officiating, where the rules are set by FIFA, UEFA and the other governing bodies, are in all honesty an absolute joke! Not only are we seeing it every week in the Premier League, we’re seeing it down the line in every division now.

“The referee for the Champions League for the PSG versus Newcastle game is renowned as being one of the best referees in the world. Ultimately, he got called over to the VAR screen when he shouldn’t have been because the ball hit Tino Livramento’s chest before his arm – that isn’t a penalty.

“He went over, looked at it and gave a penalty. I can only put that down to human error. The pressure put on him by the PSG players was frankly outrageous. The goalkeeper ran 75 yards over to him and the players were surrounding him. Not only was it on that incident, but they had done it for a penalty which he hadn’t given prior to that.

“It was purely a case of the referee not being able to cope with the pressure he’d been put under. The pressure of handling a Champions League game is big enough in itself, but this was a situation which PSG had won by manipulating the referee subconsciously to go along with the pressure he was under and make the decision to give the penalty.”

On Wednesday, UEFA announced that Tomasz Kwiatkowski, the man on VAR duty for the game in Paris, had been stood down from his Champions League commitments that night. Kwiatowski, along with referee Szymon Marciniak will not officiate in the next round of European fixtures either, however, Allardyce believes that the decision needs looked at further.

“The incident has been well talked about and it still needs looking at further.” Allardyce said. “They have stood down person who was in charge of VAR, but realistically, the referee himself needs to be stood down as well. In the end it is still his decision, although the VAR should’ve told him to carry on with the game because his initial decision was correct.”