Global scandal: UEFA acknowledges that Mac Allister’s handball versus Toulouse was not a handball
There’s a fresh scandal involving Liverpool’s games.
In the latest controversy to encircle Liverpool’s games, the VAR made a contentious call on Thursday during the Reds’ matchday 4 Europa League group stage match against Toulouse, France, where they scored a last-minute equaliser that was disallowed.
Jarrel Quansah scored the game’s winning goal in the final play to tie the score at three, but after reviewing the replay, Bulgarian referee Georgi Kabakov and the VAR decided to disallow it due to an alleged handball by Argentine Alexis Mac Allister on a previous play, which should not have been penalised because there is footage showing that there was no hand contact.
The choice is just one more in a long line of clumsy errors made against Liverpool in the Premier League and now in the UEFA competition. Although this is Liverpool’s first loss of the competition, it retains them atop the group and delays their advancement to the next round, which they will need to accomplish when they play Austria’s LASK Linz at Anfield in the upcoming weeks.
UEFA’s statement
Remarkably, UEFA’s own regulations state that the handball should not have been highlighted because “No handball offence should be called on a player if the ball is previously deflected from his own body and, in particular, when the ball does not go towards goal.”