{"id":61938,"date":"2025-04-30T03:54:16","date_gmt":"2025-04-30T03:54:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/61938\/"},"modified":"2025-04-30T03:54:16","modified_gmt":"2025-04-30T03:54:16","slug":"arsenal-wrongly-denied-penalty-on-mikel-merino-v-psg-says-ex-pgmol-boss","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/61938\/","title":{"rendered":"Arsenal wrongly denied penalty on Mikel Merino v PSG says ex-PGMOL boss"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Mikel<\/p>\n

(Credit: Amazon Prime Video)<\/p>\n

\"Keith <\/p>\n

Tue 29 April 2025 21:55, UK <\/p>\n

Arsenal should have been given a penalty after Mikel Merino was brought down by PSG midfielder Joao Neves, according to Keith Hackett.<\/strong><\/p>\n

The former PGMOL chief and ex-FIFA official exclusively told Football Insider<\/strong> that the challenge from the Portuguese midfielder was \u201ccareless\u201d and should have resulted in a spot-kick.<\/p>\n

There was already animosity between the two clubs building in the days leading up to the game, beginning with Arsenal slashing PSG\u2019s ticketing allocation<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Arsenal were then advised to complain to UEFA<\/a> when the Parisians also cut their allocation for the return leg in Paris.<\/p>\n

When the action finally unfolded, Ousmane Dembele gave PSG<\/a> an early lead, sweeping an effort past David Raya in the fourth minute.<\/p>\n

The visiting side then felt they should have had a penalty when Khvicha Kvaratskhelia was brought down by Jurrien Timber<\/a>, and the Gunners were lucky to escape.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

MORE FOOTBALL INSIDER STORIES<\/p>\n

However, the drama continued when Arsenal<\/a> had a penalty shout of their own just minutes before half-time.<\/p>\n

\"JurrienJurrien Timber brought down Khvicha Khvaratskhelia in the box. [Credit Imago]Mikel Merino goes down after challenge from Joao Neves<\/strong><\/p>\n

With 37 minutes gone and the home side trailing, Merino<\/a>, playing back in his more familiar role in central midfield, broke into the box.<\/p>\n

The ball was pulled back by the in-form Jakub Kiwior<\/a> and the Spanish midfielder looked to be in a fantastic position to level the scores.<\/p>\n

However, Neves stole ahead of the former Real Sociedad man and poked the ball away, before it was cleared by Willian Pacho.<\/p>\n

Arsenal players raised their arms in protest, but referee Slavko Vincic was uninterested, although he did cause some confusion by pointing towards the ball, with some initially thinking he was signalling for a penalty.<\/p>\n

But on further review, Neves actually made contact with Merino\u2019s thigh before touching the ball and the lack of a VAR intervention was surprising, with Hackett convinced a key decision had been missed.<\/p>\n

\"MikelMikel Merino was brought down by Joao Neves. Credit ImagoKeith Hackett analyses Arsenal penalty shout<\/strong><\/p>\n

Having reviewed the footage, former PGMOL chief Hackett gave his assessment of Vincic\u2019s decision exclusively to Football Insider<\/strong>, saying:<\/p>\n

\u201cThe challenge from the PSG player is careless and despite the great position taken up by the referee there is contact.<\/p>\n

\u201cA penalty kick should have been awarded.\u201d<\/p>\n

Merino would then go on to score an equaliser for Arsenal, before VAR intervened and disallowed the header for an offside.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

Related Posts<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credit: Amazon Prime Video) Tue 29 April 2025 21:55, UK Arsenal should have been given a penalty after…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":61939,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[161,748,393,4884,31932,25173,12,1144,7580,712,16,15,1764],"class_list":{"0":"post-61938","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-arsenal","9":"tag-britain","10":"tag-england","11":"tag-great-britain","12":"tag-joao-neves","13":"tag-mikel-merino","14":"tag-news","15":"tag-northern-ireland","16":"tag-psg","17":"tag-scotland","18":"tag-uk","19":"tag-united-kingdom","20":"tag-wales"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114424896938639481","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61938","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=61938"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/61938\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/61939"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=61938"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=61938"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=61938"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}