Rangers were appalling and deserved nothing out of the Champions League qualifier against Union Saint-Gilloise, let’s just get that out of the way early does, however, their task has been made considerably harder by referee Irfan Peljto.
The IFAB laws are quite clear on handball nowadays after several amendments over the last few years, specifically, the one that should have seen an easy decision for the officials last night led to us now having to overturn a two goal deficit at Ibrox.
Oh dear. Oh dear, oh dear. pic.twitter.com/1HBKq62mxO
— Dale Johnson (@DaleJohnsonESPN) August 2, 2022
In relation to penalty decisions, the law states that a penalty should not be awarded if:
“The ball accidentally makes contact with a defender’s hand/arm inside their own penalty area from a deflection, a teammate’s clearance or similar.”
And if you’re wondering why that penalty shouldn’t be given against Rangers, the guidance for the handball law states, and I quote:
“Exceptions e.g. the player’s arm is already extended when there is no expectation of the ball coming at, or near, the player from a team-mate.”
— Dale Johnson (@DaleJohnsonESPN) August 2, 2022
Ben Davies and Connor Goldson were almost on top of each other and actually did a good job reacting and closing down the attempted shot, certainly a lot better than when they scored in the first half anyway but there is no way that the Gers vice-captain could have avoided the deflection up on to his arm – even then, the replay footage wasn’t entirely clear.
Dale Johnson, an Editor at ESPN who has long specialised in VAR analysis has no allegiance to Rangers and was clearly annoyed at the call and how badly the referee got the decision wrong after being advised to have a look, what makes things even worse is that VAR wasn’t working in the first-half and was only in operation during the second-half, there was a handball call that they could have got equally as wrong in our favour that came and went without a second look.
Rangers have it all to do in the second leg and surely can’t be as bad again, let’s hope the officials aren’t either – unless it’s in our favour of course.