This OL-PSG, won at the last minute by the Parisians 3-2 at Groupama Stadium, continues to generate a lot of ink. The same evening, the Lyonnais contested several decisions taken by Mr. Bastien. For them, there are two situations that the VAR should have corrected: a hand from Illia Zabarnyi in the Parisian area, de facto causing according to them a penalty in their favor, then the goal from Kvaratskhelia on which Vitinha unbalances Tessmann at the time of the interception. The day after the match, the Technical Refereeing Department considered that the referee of the match had not committed a clear fault, recognizing however that there was not unanimity on the contact between the Portuguese and American midfielders. This evening’s press release (available on the FFF website), reviewing the decisions taken during the 12th day of Ligue 1, goes further in detail, and reviews its position on the action leading to the Georgian’s goal. “The video referee analyzes the nature of the Parisian player’s intervention when recovering the ball and concludes that there was no “obvious error” in the referee’s decision.» repeats this press release, confirming the remarks of the day before and this famous “gray area“. All the same, this goal should have been refused, the contact having taken place just before catching the ball.
“The analysis of this situation is rather complex insofar as it presents different criteria of interpretation falling within a “gray zone”. However, considering the contact of the right leg of the Parisian player on the back of the supporting leg of the Lyon player very slightly prior to the deflection of the ball, this contact being able to explain the fall of the Lyon player, the technical decision prioritized by the Refereeing Department is the cancellation of the goal and the resumption of the game with a direct free kick in favor of the Lyon team», Explains the DTA this evening, 48 hours after the final whistle. On Zabarnyi’s hand, however, the DTA considers that Mr. Bastien and his video assistants made the right decision for two reasons: Kluivert’s stroller at the start of the action, and the impossibility of clearly distinguishing one of the Ukrainian’s hands. “The foul push by Lyon striker no. 21 (Kluivert) behind the back of Parisian defender no. 33 (Zaire-Emery), sanctioned on the field by the referee, is proven and occurs before the possible contact between the ball and the hand of Parisian player no. 6 (Zabarnyi). Thus, in accordance with the laws of the game, the decision taken by the referee is correct and cannot be re-questioned by the possible subsequent contact between the ball and the defender’s hand. This is why the video referee’s work on this situation could have ended definitively with this analysis.says the press release before supporting the second reason. However, with regard to the possible contact between the ball and the defender’s hand in an illegal position, the video referee used the different camera angles available to him to characterize the possible contact with certainty. Being unable to confirm the existence of this contact without the slightest doubt, and therefore to qualify this decision as a “manifest error”, he rightly decided not to intervene further.»
