Former FIFA referee Jonas Eriksson believes the referee made a mistake by not awarding Bukayo Saka a handball to take away the penalty England used to equalise before beating the Netherlands 2-1 and reaching the Euro 2024 final on
Wednesday. A controversial moment occurred in the 18th minute when German referee Felix Zweyer looked at the VAR monitor and pointed to a penalty after Denzel Dumfries clashed with Harry Kane, allowing the Three Lions to equalise.
Ronald Koeman believes Dumfries’ clash should not have been a penalty, while pundits Gary Neville, Jamie Carragher and former England referee Keith Hackett all agree.
Dumfries, who caused the incident, admitted that his own play was a penalty. However, there is another problem. Because of the continuous moment before the ball reached Kane, slow-motion footage showed that it bounced off both the left and right hands of Saka.
“Now I’m surprised because the VAR team didn’t reverse the decision that gave England a penalty.” Swedish referee Eriksson, who officiated the 2014 World Cup, shared his opinion.
“According to the ufabet http://ufabet999.app, a contact is a penalty, but when you consider the whole situation, I don’t think it was. The ball clearly touched Bukayo Saka’s hand and it means that Kane should not have had a penalty for the contact.”
Netherlands captain and defender Virgil van Dijk did not comment on whether the team should have conceded a penalty, but expressed his displeasure with referee Zweyer, who was previously punished for accepting bribes in 2005,
after the game. “The referee ran down the tunnel as soon as the game ended … that says a lot. I didn’t even shake his hand,” the Liverpool centre-back said after the match.
“Anyway, the game is over. We suffered a difficult defeat. There were many things in the game that should have gone our way, but they didn’t. “
The refereeing staff always change things. The little things can make the difference. It would be better if they showed some responsibility. And I’m here to explain things like a footballer would do.”