Former Premier League referee Mike Dean was left baffled by the decision to award Portugal’s Cristiano Ronaldo a penalty during their match with Ghana on Thursday and labelled it “indefensible”.
Ronaldo won the penalty after soft contact from Ghana defender Mohammed Salisu before stepping up and scoring the spot-kick himself, but the decision from VAR to not send the referee to the monitor left many football fans confused and that included Mike Dean.
With the game being a close one, the penalty decision for the opening goal of the match was a major call and the current Premier League VAR official had his say on the matter.
Speaking after full-time of Portugal vs Ghana, Dean said about the incident via the Daily Mirror: “The defender [Salisu] clearly plays the ball. Ronaldo then touches the back of the defender, goes down, instigated contact.
“It’s not the referee’s fault – he’s given the decision on the field of play. The VAR, in my opinion, should have got involved and invited the referee over to have a look at it.”
The former Premier League referee continued: “It’s scary, I have to say. I’m just astounded. I like to back referees all the time but you can’t support stuff like that. You can’t defend the indefensible.”
“It should have been overturned,” he added.
“He should have gone to the screen, he should have looked at it. There may have been some technical glitch that we don’t know about. I just can’t understand why he wasn’t sent to the screen. 100 per cent it’s wrong.”
Many in the aftermath of the game have questioned the decision as it did end up having a big impact on the match, but as Dean said, this is on VAR not the man in the middle.
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