Referees admit Manchester United goal should have been disallowed for handball
PGMOL admitted Matheus Cunha’s 55th-minute goal should have been ruled out, turning a 3-2 result into another credibility test for English football’s officials.
Manchester United’s winning margin over Nottingham Forest was decided by a goal the referees’ body now says should never have counted. Matheus Cunha’s 55th-minute strike in United’s 3-2 victory at Old Trafford stood only after referee Michael Salisbury overruled the VAR following a pitch-side review of Bryan Mbeumo’s contact with the ball in the build-up.
PGMOL chief refereeing officer Howard Webb spoke to both clubs on Monday to acknowledge the misjudgement and apologise to Forest. The Premier League Match Centre had originally said Salisbury judged the handball to be accidental, but PGMOL later accepted that the decision should have gone the other way. In practical terms, the system that was meant to filter out clear errors identified the incident, sent it to the pitch-side monitor and still delivered the wrong outcome.
For Nottingham Forest, the damage was not limited to frustration. Vitor Pereira said he wanted an urgent meeting with PGMOL and Premier League officials to clear up the handball rule, arguing that the decision had decided the game and that managers were left uncertain about when handball or fouls should be given. His complaint cut to a wider problem: if the laws are interpreted differently in the heat of the moment, and then corrected only after the final whistle, the sport’s accountability structure begins to look more like a record of mistakes than a safeguard against them.
The fallout also carried financial weight. Forest’s defeat could affect their Premier League merit payments, a reminder that one refereeing call can move more than points in the table. Southampton received £2.6 million in basic merit payments last season, and clubs finishing higher can be worth significantly more, so an incorrect goal can ripple into budgets as well as standings.
The reaction from the game’s most visible pundits was blunt. Former United defender Gary Neville called the decision “a shocker,” while Alan Shearer said it was “disgraceful.” Forest have already spent years dealing with contentious refereeing decisions since their promotion to the Premier League in 2022, and this latest episode sharpened the question around English football’s officiating standards: if VAR, pitch-side review and post-match apology still end with the wrong result standing, the process may be improving transparency, but it is not yet restoring competitive fairness.
Know something we missed? Have a correction or additional information?
Submit a Tip
