West Ham United penalty controversy enrages former referees chief in defeat to Chelsea
Keith Hackett was left enraged by a series of refereeing decisions over the weekend including the failure to award West Ham a penalty against Chelsea.
The former FIFA referee and ex-head of the then-PGMOB fumed on X (22 September) at the “rock bottom” standard of officiating in the Premier League, listing a series if incidents he was upset by.
Crysencio Summerville was pulled back in the box by Wesley Fofana in the 3-0 loss at the London Stadium but appeals were dismissed, while Hackett was also upset by the failure to send off Manchester United’s Lisandro Martinez for a two-footed challenge and chaos between Brighton and Nottingham Forest.
He wrote: “The quality of decision making in the Premier League is at rock bottom. WHU not awarded a penalty kick after clear holding. Two footed challenge no red card! Then ref in Brighton game indicates ball played. 4th official gets involved / result three reds. Where are we going”.
Crysencio Summerville claim waved off in West Ham loss
The pull back was the sort of decision that gets penalised every week even if it might not be enough contact to make a player go down.
What fans and pundits always call for in debates about officiating is consistency, but maybe that’s impossible when certain elements of officiating are inherently judgement-based and are influenced by other factors.
Even so, most people know a regularly-given foul when they see one and Fofana pulling back Summerville, and holding on as he entered the area, was certainly that.
Chelsea fans might argue that West Ham got away without conceding a penalty for a Tomas Soucek handball in this fixture two seasons ago, but Irons supporters might argue straight back that Maxwel Cornet had a perfectly good goal ruled out at Stamford Bridge earlier in the same campaign.
So there is a regular supply of baffling decisions that appear to be outliers from what has become the norm, and officials’ reputations are currently not great.
That may be because decisions are analysed so much more heavily than they ever were before but if the likes of Hackett are still furious it suggests not.
Had the kick been given it might have given Julen Lopetegui’s side a route back into the game, and an avenue to take the heat off the struggling new boss.
The Irons are down in 14th with just one win from five and there are signs he is starting to lose the fans already [Tom Rennie, 21 September], so he needs some luck to go his way and against Enzo Maresca’s side it didn’t.
In other West Ham news, a former Hammers player believes the manager is under pressure after seeing the faces of David Sullivan and Karren Brady.
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