By Daily Sports Nigeria on March 1, 2022

Everton made an official complaint to the Premier League about recent decisions made by officials after they were denied a penalty in 1-0 loss to Manchester City on Saturday; PGMOL managing director Mike Riley has now personally apologised for the incident

PGMOL managing director Mike Riley made personal telephone calls to both Everton chairman Bill Kenwright and manager Frank Lampard to apologise following the decision by VAR not to award the club a penalty in Saturday's game against Manchester City.

Referee Paul Tierney and VAR referee Chris Kavanagh dismissed the Everton claims despite the ball clearly striking the arm of City's Rodri.

Everton made an official complaint to the Premier League on Monday and Sky Sports News has been told the chairman and manager both received calls later in the day from Riley to apologise over the incident.

Dermot Gallagher told Ref Watch that the officials got it wrong, saying: "It is a penalty, no doubt. I think the VAR inspected it for too long. There are a couple of angles that may have affected the decision."

During the weekend's Premier League game, Rodri appeared to use his upper arm to control a bouncing ball in the Everton box soon after Phil Foden had put City in front at Goodison Park, but Tierney missed the incident and Kavanagh opted not to award a spot-kick after a lengthy review.

First-team coach Ashley Cole was shown a yellow card for his protestations to Tierney after the final whistle and a furious Lampard vented his frustrations in his post-match interview with Sky Sports.

"There is no doubt, there is no probably to it," said Lampard on whether his side should have been awarded a spot-kick.

"The decision is incredible, incredible, and that loses us the opportunity to get what we deserved.

"That's a VAR call. That's Chris Kavanagh, I spoke to the referee and they know it is a penalty, the question is that is it offside and it wasn't.

"That's the reason we have VAR. It wouldn't have needed more than five seconds to know it was a penalty. He [Kavanagh] should have either told the referee to give it or told him to go look at it.

"We've lost a point because of a professional who cannot do his job right. You start searching for whys and I can't think why. It is so incompetent to get it wrong.

"Pep [Guardiola] will know, Everton fans will know, Man City fans will know, it was the clearest penalty you could give: arm is out - great, below the sleeve - great, I was waiting for the penalty.

"Incompetence at best, at worst who knows? I'll wait for the statement or apology they do when things are wrong but it will mean nothing."

Source

Posted March 1, 2022

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