📸 Europa League: the unbelievable penalty denied to Lille 😳 | OneFootball

Well then...

This Thursday evening, Lille hosted the Greek club PAOK for the third matchday of the Europa League group stage.

LOSC was trailing 3-0 at halftime! Despite this surprising score, the highlight of these first 45 minutes was the improbable decision made by the match referee just seconds before the break...

While Lille was down 2-0, Matías Fernández-Pardo was held by the shirt in PAOK's penalty area.

The player fell, and the referee initially did not blow the whistle.

But upon reviewing the replays, the shirt pulling on the LOSC attacker seemed blatant. The defender clearly brought Fernández-Pardo down by pulling him towards him.

The VAR referees then called the main referee and advised him to review the video to reassess the action.

He headed to the screen, spent more than a minute observing the action—which seemed clearly evident on all the replays shown—before revealing his decision: no penalty! The referee did not change his mind, to everyone's surprise!

And hold on tight... PAOK scored their third goal on the next play, 30 seconds later!

Final score: LOSC 3-4 PAOK. 

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇫🇷 here.

📸 SAMEER AL-DOUMY - AFP or licensors