{"id":332886,"date":"2025-10-26T02:49:18","date_gmt":"2025-10-26T02:49:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/332886\/"},"modified":"2025-10-26T02:49:18","modified_gmt":"2025-10-26T02:49:18","slug":"clear-evidence-keith-hackett-drops-simon-hooper-verdict-after-re-analysing-cody-gakpo-penalty-claim","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/332886\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Clear evidence’ – Keith Hackett drops Simon Hooper verdict after re-analysing Cody Gakpo penalty claim"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Referee<\/p>\n

(Credit: Imago, TNT)<\/p>\n

\"Oliver <\/p>\n

Sat 25 October 2025 22:15, UK <\/p>\n

Simon Hooper was right to wave away Cody Gakpo\u2019s claims for a penalty in the first-half of Liverpool\u2019s trip to Brentford on Saturday night.<\/strong><\/p>\n

That is according to former PGMOL chief and ex-FIFA referee,\u00a0Keith Hackett<\/a>, who exclusively told\u00a0Football Insider<\/strong> that Hooper was well-positioned to see that there was little contact between Cody Gakpo<\/a> and Nathan Collins<\/a> as the former went down in the area.<\/p>\n

Brentford<\/a> took an early lead as Dango Ouattara<\/a> got on the end of a Michael Kayode long-throw to deepen Liverpool<\/a>\u2018s fears of a fourth successive Premier League loss.<\/p>\n

Kevin Schade doubled the hosts\u2019 advantage just before the break as he finished off a clean counter-attack, but Milos Kerkez<\/a> soon hit back for the Reds as he popped up at the back-post to score in first-half added-time.<\/p>\n

The hosts extended their lead from the spot in the second-half as Newcastle target Igor Thiago<\/a> continued his impressive form in front of goal, but Liverpool felt like they deserved a spot-kick of their own in the first-half.<\/p>\n

\"CodyCredit: ImagoGakpo wanted a penalty after Nathan Collins\u2019 challenge<\/p>\n

Liverpool had their fair share of attacks in the first-half despite going two goals down, and they felt like they should have had a penalty just before Schade\u2019s strike as Gakpo went down under pressure from Collins.<\/p>\n

Despite his strong claims and the initial view seeming like he was caught, Hooper saw nothing in the challenge and played on as VAR checked and cleared the call.<\/p>\n

MORE FOOTBALL INSIDER STORIES<\/p>\n

Gakpo has struggled for form in recent weeks<\/a>, and his desperation to win a spot-kick against Brentford was clear as replays showed that there was certainly minimal contact between him and the Bees captain.<\/p>\n

The Premier League\u2019s X statement<\/a> to justify the decision of no-penalty read: \u201cThe referee\u2019s call of no penalty to Liverpool was checked and confirmed by VAR \u2013 with it deemed that there was no foul by Collins on Gakpo.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hackett praises Hooper and VAR for following protocol correctly<\/p>\n

Speaking exclusively to\u00a0Football Insider<\/strong>\u00a0about the penalty situation, former PGMOL chief Hackett praised Hooper, who had to go off injured at half-time, and backed his decision not to point to the spot.<\/p>\n

He said: \u201cReferee Simon Hooper was ideally positioned to detect if there was any contact to award a penalty kick. <\/p>\n

\u201cFrankly there is no clear evidence that there was actual contact and therefore without that evidence rightly VAR did not intervene.<\/p>\n

\"Keith<\/p>\n

\u201cThese decisions are so much more credible when the referee is in close proximity to play to judge accurately what has taken place.<\/p>\n

\u201cWithout that clear evidence of contact, you would not award a penalty kick.\u201d<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(Credit: Imago, TNT) Sat 25 October 2025 22:15, UK Simon Hooper was right to wave away Cody Gakpo\u2019s…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":332887,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[45],"tags":[12444,81291,165058,215,165059,165060,221,62,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-332886","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-soccer","8":"tag-brentford","9":"tag-cody-gakpo","10":"tag-keith-hackett","11":"tag-liverpool","12":"tag-nathan-collins","13":"tag-simon-hooper","14":"tag-soccer","15":"tag-sports","16":"tag-united-states","17":"tag-unitedstates","18":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115438195115315858","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332886","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=332886"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/332886\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/332887"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=332886"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=332886"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=332886"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}