The problem with the award of penalties is that a lot of them are marginal decisions, even with VAR. This is particularly the case with the handball rule which has arguably been applied a little less stringently as the season has gone on, and probably rightly so.
Analysis by the Match
of the Day team last night suggested that two of Forest’s penalty claims at Everton were not justified, but the third one was.
The referee should have been at least summoned to the screen to review
his decision.
It is easy to be critical of Nottingham Forest. And the
manner in which they used social media to voice allegations over the integrity
of match officials after Sunday’s 2-0 away loss against fellow relegation
candidates Everton was arguably undermining the foundations of the
game. Officials make mistakes,
sometimes bad ones, but they may not qualify as clear and obvious errors and
they indicate poor decision-making rather than bias.
Yet while they have been criticised for the way they shared
their outrage, Forest clearly feel that their frustration and anger are
justified.
It is therefore no surprise that the Football Association is
investigating the post on X to decide whether any official lines have
been crossed. PGMOL (Professional Game Match Officials Limited), the body
representing the nation’s top referees, assistants and VARs, is supportive of
that stance.
In the away dressing room yesterday, there was a sense of
outrage after the final whistle and Forest head coach Nuno Espirito Santo,
speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live after the game, encapsulated the level of the club’s
anger when he said: “If we were in another country, for sure that (the subject
of conspiracy) will come up.”
However, the answer to the question of why those decisions
did not go in their favour does not realistically lie with the fact that the
VAR official for the game, Stuart Attwell — or the fourth official Keith Stroud
for that matter — supports Luton Town, another club in the relegation
discussion (as Forest implied with their post-match tweet).
That, as even Nuno pointed out himself after the game, is
“not important”. Even just presuming for one minute that there was bias there —
and there is no evidence to support that notion — the best result at Goodison
for Luton would surely have been a draw, and two players sent off on each side,
rather than either team going home with all three points.
It is true PGMOL could have saved itself a problem by not
appointing an official with an affiliation to one of the two clubs’ relegation
rivals to this game. But if we are at the stage where a match official
supporting a team in close proximity to the competing sides in the table must
now be taken into account when deciding if they are assigned to a fixture, we
will be stepping into a danger zone.
Forest are upset about their points deduction and feel that
the dice are loaded against insurgent clubs which in some ways they are. A lot is at stake for them – and other clubs
– but they should avoid being seen as bad losers. Appointing a former referee as a consultant
is not a welcome development. But so
much money is at stake in the Premier League, it can have unintended and
unwanted consequences.
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