Premier League explain why Chelsea weren’t given penalty for Tomas Soucek handball
On Saturday afternoon, Chelsea’s 1-1 draw with West Ham left everyone associated with the team feeling frustrated, due to the missed opportunity to award the club a penalty late in the game.
Chelsea manager, Graham Potter, is facing increasing pressure to improve the team’s performance, especially given the large amount of money the club invested in new players last month.
A win against West Ham would have been a significant step in the right direction, and the chance to secure the win with a late penalty would have been a huge boost.
Despite going ahead in the first half with a goal from Joao Felix, the Hammers managed to equalize through Emerson Pamieri against his former team.
Late in the second half, Conor Gallagher’s shot clearly hit the hand of West Ham midfielder Tomas Soucek. Despite protests from the Chelsea players claiming handball, the referee Craig Pawson did not award a penalty.
The incident was reviewed by VAR, but officials at Stockley Park could not find any evidence to overturn Pawson’s on-field decision.
The Premier League has since explained the decision not to award a penalty, stating that the hand that the ball hit was the one that broke Soucek’s fall, and therefore a penalty should not have been given, according to the PGMOL, the group responsible for officiating all FA competitions.
After the game, Potter discussed the call and joked that Soucek had made an outstanding save.
“It was a good save,” he quipped. “You need your goalkeeper sometimes to give you the points. It looks like one of those that if it was given it wouldn’t have been overturned, but obviously it wasn’t given.
“You have to earn your luck. We can’t complain or wait for luck to turn for us, we have to keep working. It looked quite a handball and, like I said, I didn’t know Tomas could get down so easily and save like that.”
Peter Walton, a former Premier League official, acknowledged that Pawson made a mistake by failing to indicate the penalty spot despite the VAR review.
“The law is clear, the VAR clearly thinks the arm is in a natural position and that he is going down to break his fall,” Walton told BT Sport.
“If you analyse it in slow motion, you can see the ball is past his knee and then his arm is there. For me, I think it is a deliberate act and am disappointed the VAR didn’t give the referee the opportunity to go and have a second look at it.
“Football, I think, as a community, would want that given as a penalty. As a former Premier League referee I think that was the wrong decision today.”
Premier League explain why Chelsea weren’t given penalty for Tomas Soucek handball
