By CNN
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Newcastle United was denied a famous away win over Paris Saint-Germain after the French side was awarded a late penalty following yet another controversial VAR decision.
Trailing 1-0 to Alexander Isak’s 24th-minute goal, PSG swarmed the Newcastle goal throughout the second half but without any success.
Then, in the fifth minute of injury time, Ousmane Dembélé was halted as he tried to get past Tino Livramento inside the Magpies’ box, leading to huge penalty appeals from the PSG squad.
Referee Szymon Marciniak – usually considered to be among the elite of European officials – immediately went over to the pitch-side monitor to check the replays, which showed Dembélé had kicked the ball into Livramento’s chest from point-blank range, before it ricocheted onto the Newcastle defender’s arm.
It’s likely that most fans watching will have expected Marciniak to run back onto the pitch and wave away the PSG appeals, but instead he signaled for a penalty kick.
“He’s given it, I can’t believe it,” TNT Sports commentator Darren Fletcher said. “How on earth has he given that?”
Co-commentator Ally McCoist added: “That is a shambles. A shambles. Honestly, it’s not on.
“If that’s a penalty kick, we might as well give the game up. That’s nonsense. Nonsense. If he’s the best ref in the business – and he probably is – how can he give that?”
Kylian Mbappé converted the penalty emphatically to earn PSG a huge 1-1 draw – a loss would have meant the Parisians’ destiny was out of their hands – and break the hearts of Newcastle’s players and the thousands of fans that had traveled to Paris.
After the match, Newcastle manager Eddie Howe said he was “still coming to terms” with the decision to award PSG a spot kick.
“I feel really flat, but at the same time very, very pleased with what the players have given today,” Howe told TNT Sports after the game. “We rode our luck at times, but I think we deserved that and we sort of ran out of luck at the end because I didn’t think it was a penalty.
“What you’re not taking into account watching the replay is how quick that ball is live and it’s hit his chest first – I think that’s the key thing. If it hits is hand first, I still don’t think it would be a penalty because of the close proximity, but I think you can make more of a case.
“I don’t think there is a case when it hits another body part first and his hands are low.”
Bizarrely, Marciniak didn’t award PSG a penalty earlier in the match when the ball bounced up off Lewis Miley’s leg and hit his arm, highlighting not only the lack of consistency across matches, but also in the same match.
Following a UEFA meeting in April this year, European football’s governing body put a number of suggestions forward to the International Football Association Board (IFAB), the body that determines the laws of football, which included not penalizing players for handball if the ball has previously deflected off a player’s own body.
The current IFAB rule book doesn’t mention deflections off a player’s body, but does say a penalty should be awarded if a player “is considered to have made their body unnaturally bigger [with] the position of their hand/arm.”
CNN has reached out to UEFA for comment.
Borussia Dortmund’s 3-1 win over AC Milan secured its place in the knockout stages, but with just two points separating PSG, Milan and Newcastle, all three teams can still reach the last 16, though a Paris win would ensure Mbappé and Co. make it through to the knockouts.
Dortmund hosts PSG in Group F’s final gameweek, while Newcastle welcomes Milan.
