Former top referee Mark Clattenburg believes the decision to award Rangers a penalty against Motherwell signals an 'all-time low' for spot-kicks, branding the call 'very soft.'
The Ibrox side won the match 1-0 thanks to Ryan Naderi, who came on after Lawrence Shankland's early injury and tapped home after 12 minutes, beating Steelmen goalkeeper Alex Paulsen. Rangers had a chance to double their lead when Tom Sparrow was judged to have fouled Djeidi Gassama in the area. With Shankland absent, Minsu Kim stepped up but sent his penalty wide.
Decision sparks debate
The decision has generated significant discussion, with Motherwell's social media criticising the call and claiming 'justice' was done when Kim missed. Former referees Bobby Madden and Clattenburg failed to agree on the incident.
Speaking on the So Near, Yet So VAR podcast, former FIFA and SPFL official Madden said: "When I first saw it, I thought it looked like a penalty kick. Sparrow's absolutely focused on the ball, Gassama's come from the blind side, made contact with the ball, and then the contact has come from Sparrow. It's a foul anywhere on the pitch. You can see his intention isn't to foul, his intention is to play the ball, but as soon as someone comes in and makes the touch before you and you make contact, it's a foul. It's a penalty. I didn't think there was too much debate about it."
Clattenburg's counter
Clattenburg, who spent 17 years refereeing at the top level, disagreed. "This will split opinion. Some people will say it's a penalty, some will say play on, some might say there's a foul on the defender. I just think if we're going to award penalty kicks for this, that means the threshold for foul challenges in the penalty area is at an all-time low. It means nearly every bit of contact inside the area is going to be a penalty kick. What Bobby's said, you can make an argument, but I can make an argument the other way."
He added: "I can say Gassama's jumped in and Sparrow's jumped forward, Gassama's come in from the side and made contact with the body of Sparrow. For me, if I was refereeing this game, I wouldn't want to put myself in the position of giving soft penalties. I wouldn't even say this was soft – I'd say it was very soft."
