Serdar Gözübüyük made the right decision on Wednesday evening by not awarding Manchester City a penalty in the final phase of the Champions League meeting with RB Leipzig. This is evident from new images released by UEFA. The Dutch referee incurred the anger of the English by not whistling for an alleged handball by Benjamin Henrichs.
In the last minute of stoppage time, with the score at 1-1, Henrichs seemed to receive the ball in his own penalty area. The City players screamed for a penalty, but Gözübüyük did not budge. Pol van Boekel and Dennis Higler, who acted as VAR, also did not intervene. The game therefore ended in a draw and the analysts from England spit fire.
Where the players of City and manager Pep Guardiola did not want to air their opinion about the situation afterwards, it happened in the studio of BT Sports well. Shaun Wright-Phillips, who during his active career for the Citizens called it an ‘incredible decision’ and a ‘definite handball’. Rio Ferdinand agreed by stating that Gözübüyük had indeed missed a clear penalty kick.
When images from UEFA surfaced a little later, they turned on BT Sports were made available, it turned out that Henrichs did not get the ball on his arm. The German touched the ball with his shoulder and even Wright-Phillips had to admit that the Dutch referee had made the right decision. “By seeing these images, it is absolutely impossible to say that the referee should have given a penalty for this,” it sounded.
These images showed that Gözübüyük was right