Simon Hooper and Michael Salisbury will not be included in the referee appointments for next weekend’s Premier League games after they failed to award a stoppage-time penalty to Wolverhampton Wanderers in Monday night’s 1-0 defeat to Manchester United at Old Trafford.
Goalkeeper André Onana clattered into Wolves’ Sasa Kalajdzic in the sixth added minute at Old Trafford, but on-field referee, Hooper, did not award a penalty and the VAR, Salisbury, failed to intervene. Richard West, the assistant VAR for the match, will also not be selected.
Salisbury initiated a lengthy VAR check but cleared the incident as not a clear and obvious error.
Wolves’ boss, Gary O’Neil, said afterwards that Jon Moss, the manager of the Select Group 1 officials who referee in the Premier League, had told him it was a mistake.
Since Howard Webb took over as chief refereeing officer for refereeing in the Premier League, the organisation has admitted errors and taken action against officials who make mistakes to show greater transparency.
It is the second time Salisbury has been stood down in recent months. In April, he was the VAR for the controversial game between Tottenham Hotspur and Brighton & Hove Albion.
PGMOL apologised after Kaoru Mitoma was denied a penalty after being caught by Pierre-Emile Hojbjerg, with Salisbury taken off duty for the following weekend and not selected as a VAR for the next 3½ weeks. –ESPN
