Howard Webb has admitted it was a mistake not to play advantage in the dying minutes of the 3-3 draw between Manchester City and Tottenham this month and revealed that the referee Simon Hooper was “devastated” and “remorseful” over the incident.
The Premier League champions were charged with failing to control their players after several questioned Hooper’s decision not to allow City a possibly important advantage in the final minutes of play. Erling Haaland, who led the complaints and was seen screaming at Hooper at close range, avoided personal charges for his behaviour and for a tweet sent immediately after the match on 3 December.
Replays appeared to show Hooper initially signalling for a foul but he allowed the game to continue before halting play moments later after Haaland had played the ball through for Jack Grealish.
Speaking on the latest episode of Match Officials: Mic’d Up on Tuesday night, Webb, who is chief refereeing officer for Professional Game Match Officials Limited (PGMOL), admitted that Hooper should have allowed play to continue.
“It is an officiating mistake,” Webb said. “On this particular occasion, he sees a pretty strong, reckless foul challenge by Emerson Royal on Haaland. It’s in midfield, and the ball comes backwards. He does the hard work, he just hesitates a moment to see if an advantage is possible. But he recognises in his mind, thinking it through, that it was a strong challenge, it was reckless, he is going to have to caution.
“At ground level, it’s not quite so easy to see the way that things are playing out as it is from an elevated view. And he decides to penalise just at the moment as the ball’s about to go, he blows the whistle, and then realises that a wonderful advantage was available. And for sure, he was devastated. He’d refereed the game really well for 93 minutes, but he knows this is going to be the only talking point.
“Really close to the end of the game, I understand the disappointment that Manchester City felt on this one, because it would have been a wonderful advantage. He just formed the opinion to blow just at the wrong time. It looked like he was ready to play advantage.”
Webb revealed that he had spoken to Hooper – who was criticised in August for failing to award a penalty to Wolves against Manchester United – and recommended owning up to his mistake.
“I said to him afterwards: ‘Just hold your hands up. It’s difficult to be annoyed at a remorseful man. Just show your disappointment in the moment.’ Because he was certainly feeling that at the time.”
