ITV’s refereeing expert clarifies why England’s Euro semi-final penalty SHOULDN’T have been given by VAR, according to their own rules, after fans accused her of on-air commentary blunder

Christina Unkel has shed more light on England’s controversial penalty against the Netherlands, underlining her position that the spot-kick should not have been awarded.

The Three Lions fell behind 1-0 after just seven minutes in their Euro 2024 semi-final on Wednesday, before Harry Kane equalised from the penalty spot after Denzel Dumfries fouled the England captain.

It was a highly controversial decision as the England players barely appealed after it appeared to be a natural collision when Kane shot and Dumfries tried to block the ball.

On the field, no penalty was awarded, but VAR official Bastian Dankert urged referee Felix Zwayer to go to the monitor. The German official reversed his original call and awarded the penalty.

And Unkel, who works as a refereeing expert for ITV during the tournament, was adamant during the incident that it should not have been a penalty. Other questions were also raised about a possible handball by Bukayo Saka in the build-up to the match.

This led to accusations from Unkel that he had made a blunder after the ball was given, but on Thursday she again stressed why it was an unnecessary decision from Zwayer to overturn the original decision after being called by VAR.

“As I said before and during the recommendation,” she began in a thread explaining her position on X.

‘The referee’s decision not to award a penalty on the pitch did not reach the threshold of intervention, which amounts to a “clear and obvious error” and should not have led to a recommendation for the reversal of the penalty, as VAR stands for “maximum advantage, minimum interference”.

‘The threshold that must be reached before a VAR can make a recommendation is COE.

‘(An)other way to say COE is: does the entire football community (without prejudice) expect the decision?

‘The burden is high and I have to say that 90 percent of the football community expects the recommended decision once they have seen the actual video evidence.

‘VAR was created to correct decisions that were missed and amounted to ‘hand of God’ scenarios, missed contact moments that amounted to serious malice, etc.’

Unkel continues: ‘That is why a referee changes his decision in 9 out of 10 cases when he goes to the monitor, because the threshold for making the recommendation should be so high.

‘Mistakes can still be made and therefore the referee still has the final say in accepting or rejecting a recommendation.’

‘In this situation: the referee’s decision on the field (whether given or not) should remain without VAR recommendation in any case.

‘Whichever way you look at it, it is not a COE error (as it is seen in the football community discourse), so it should have been fully checked.’

Unkel then said she was surprised that the decision had been reversed, referring to the general guidelines surrounding UEFA events.

She added: ‘It was a surprise that it was recommended (to review Zwayer’s decision) because of the standards for a high intervention line that are consistently applied by UEFA. There are several important considerations why it does not become a penalty because of the way the contact was initiated (perseverance) and the context.

‘If this clip alone, in terms of the type of contact and the context of the contact, were to be questioned as a preferred decision (as you as a referee have to have a decision), then the preferred decision would be not to award a penalty.

‘Final conclusion: Since it was not a COE error and the considerations of the game did not in themselves lead to a preferential decision for a penalty, the analysis remains that it was an error from a procedural and substantive point of view.

‘So why, given that VAR at the time of the recommendation deemed it a reckless tackle (why was a yellow card given as if it had been careless it would only have resulted in a penalty) did he focus on Dumfries’ studs making contact with the side/front of Kane’s foot.

“But the context of that contact should not have been overlooked.”

However, several Dutch players were furious about the decision afterwards. For example, Dutch captain Virgil van Dijk, who received a yellow card for a foul during the match, was angry with Zwayer.

“I don’t know if I should say anything about that,” he said to be in sports. ‘I told the Dutch media. I think it says enough that the referee went in quite quickly after the match.

‘I didn’t have time to shake his hand. But it is what it is, the game is over, we lost, there were moments when it was clear they should have gone our way, but they didn’t, whatever the outcome.

“It’s hard to accept this. It’s been a tough year. We had a big dream and we felt we could make it come true.”

He continued: ‘They keep changing certain things, small changes that can have a big impact. Maybe it’s good that they can be held accountable too.

‘They didn’t come here to talk to you and explain themselves, like we have to do when we do something wrong.

“That could be something. But I shouldn’t talk about others and we need to look at ourselves.”

Ronald Koeman also reacted angrily to the decision: ‘What do you do as a defender?

‘This is not a penalty. Dumfries wanted to block the ball. Then the shoes collided. Such VAR decisions ruin football.’

However, Kane disagreed, saying, “My foot’s hanging off, so he definitely hit me!”

“Sometimes you get them, sometimes you don’t. I was happy to step forward and see it go into the net. That was definitely a good feeling.”