adminFormer referee Mark Clattenburg has described the decision to award Rangers a penalty against Motherwell as signalling an “all-time” low for officiating standards.
The Ibrox side had the opportunity to increase their advantage over the visitors when Tom Sparrow collided with Djeidi Gassama inside the penalty area, sending him crashing to the ground.
However, Minsu-Kim missed the resulting spot kick, firing his effort wide of the post.
Two former referees have offered contrasting opinions on the penalty decision.
Speaking on the So Near, Yet So VAR podcast, former FIFA and SPFL official Bobby Madden said: “When I first saw it, I thought it looked like a penalty kick. Sparrow’s absolutely focused on the ball, Gassama’s come from the blind side, made contact with the ball, and then the contact has come from Sparrow. It’s a foul anywhere on the pitch.
You can see his intention isn’t to foul, his intention is to play the ball, but as soon as someone comes in and makes the touch before you and you make contact, it’s a foul. It’s a penalty. I didn’t think there was too much debate about it.”
Clattenburg, however, disagreed with that assessment.
He argued: “This will split opinion. Some people will say it’s a penalty, some will say play on, some might say there’s a foul on the defender. I just think if we’re going to award penalty kicks for this, that means the threshold for foul challenges in the penalty area is at an all-time low.
“It means nearly every bit of contact inside the area is going to be a penalty kick. What Bobby’s said, you can make an argument, but I can make an argument the other way.
“I can say Gassama’s jumped in and Sparrow’s jumped forward, Gassama’s come in from the side and made contact with the body of Sparrow.
“For me, if I was refereeing this game, I wouldn’t want to put myself in the position of giving soft penalties. I wouldn’t even say this was soft – I’d say it was very soft.
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