Manchester United, Wolves officials dropped for next set of Premier League fixtures
Aug 15, 2023
London [UK], August 15 : Referee Simon Hooper, VAR official Michael Salisbury and VAR assistant Richard West won't be selected for next week after they failed to award Wolves a penalty against Manchester United on Tuesday.
Andre Onana became the talk of the town after his controversial attempt to make a save in injury time resulted in a clash with Wolves striker Sasa Kalajdzic.
Onana took out Kalajdzic, but even after making an appeal Wolves were denied a penalty. VAR didn't intervene to overturn the onfield decision.
Wolves head coach Gary O'Neil didn't hold back to express his displeasure over the decision after the match. During his post-match press conference, O'Neil said he had received an apology from Jon Moss.
"We have just spoken to Jon Moss and fair play to him for coming straight out and apologising and saying it was a blatant penalty and should have been given," he said.
"I spent the afternoon with him [on Monday], gave up a lot of my day and preparation around trying to understand the new guidelines and trying not to get myself booked on my first game with the new guidelines, which I failed in. Fair play to Jon for saying it was a clear and obvious error and he cannot believe that the on-field ref did not give it, cannot believe that VAR didn't intervene," Gary added.
After the entire penalty fiasco, Hooper, Salisbury and West have not been included in the referee appointments for next weekend's Premier League games. This led to him being taken off VAR duties for more than three weeks after his errors in the Spurs match.
This is not the first time Salisbury has been stood down this year. In April, he decided not to award Brighton a penalty in their controversial 2-1 defeat to Tottenham. As of now, it is not clear when the referees will be allowed to make their comeback on the pitch.
