Scotland penalty claim was ‘just physical contact’, says Uefa referees chief

Stuart Armstrong tumbles to the ground after the challenge of Hungary’s Willi Orban. Photograph: Nigel Keene/ProSports/REX/Shutterstock

Uefa has defended the decision to deny Scotland a penalty in their defining defeat against Hungary, insisting it was “just physical contact” that had caused the midfielder Stuart Armstrong to fall to the ground.

The remarks follow outspoken criticism by Scotland’s manager, Steve Clarke, of the decision by the Argentinian referee Facundo Tello. Clarke claimed it was “100% a penalty” and demanded an explanation from officials.

On Friday Roberto Rosetti, Uefa’s managing director for refereeing, said Tello’s verdict had been checked and backed by VAR.

“When Armstrong was in front of the Hungarian, if you watch from the camera behind, there was a movement of the attacker towards the Hungarian,” he said. “Of course the VAR checked this situation … and they decided that this was just physical contact. This is what happened on the pitch.”

Rosetti said the decision not to award a penalty was “controversial” but comparable to an incident a minute before when Tello did not blow for a shirt pull by John McGinn in the Scotland area. “The previous one [would have gone] in favour of Hungary, the second one Scotland,” he said.

Rosetti also commented on the heavily scrutinised VAR intervention by English officials during the Netherlands’ match against France. The VAR Stuart Attwell took nearly three minutes to confirm an on-field call of offside against the Netherlands’ Denzel Dumfries which ruled out a Xavi Simons goal.

“It’s not easy,” Rosetti said of the decision, “because VAR checked two possible offsides then a possible impact on the goalkeeper, then a possible previous contact. Then we can add that we are at the Euro and the pressure is the pressure. We support this decision. We always support accuracy, while working on speed of decision of reviews.”

Rosetti revealed figures that showed VAR decisions were being made more quickly than in the Champions League and said Semi-automated Offside Technology (SAOT) was “working very well”. VAR has made 20 corrections of on-field decisions in the 36 group matches, taking an average 51 seconds compared with 56 seconds in the Champions League. The average time for an SAOT verdict has been 46 seconds compared with 58 in the club competition.

One other nugget of data backed up a determination by referees to clamp down on cynical fouls, with 35 yellow cards awarded for “stopping promising attacks” compared with nine by this point three years ago. The number of bookings for dissent has also increased, from 10 to 19.