{"id":455229,"date":"2026-05-18T17:42:07","date_gmt":"2026-05-18T17:42:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/455229\/"},"modified":"2026-05-18T17:42:07","modified_gmt":"2026-05-18T17:42:07","slug":"pgmo-admits-handball-error-on-man-utd-goal-v-forest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/455229\/","title":{"rendered":"PGMO admits handball error on Man Utd goal v Forest"},"content":{"rendered":"

Manchester United<\/a>‘s second goal in Sunday’s Premier League win over Nottingham Forest<\/a> should have been disallowed for handball, Professional Game Match Officials (PGMO) has admitted.<\/p>\n

The referees’ body contacted Forest on Monday to confirm there had been a misjudgement by referee Michael Salisbury, who rejected a video assistant referee (VAR) review to rule out the goal.<\/p>\n

The ball came off the arm of United forward Bryan Mbeumo before the Cameroon international saw a shot blocked by a defender.<\/p>\n

Team-mate Matheus Cunha moved on to the loose ball and fired a shot past Forest keeper Matz Sels to score.<\/p>\n

Salisbury was sent to the pitchside monitor by the VAR, Matt Donohue, to disallow the goal.<\/p>\n

But Salisbury decided the handball was accidental and stuck by his on-field decision of goal.<\/p>\n

It put United 2-0 up in a game they went on to win 3-2<\/a>.<\/p>\n

“From the angle I was standing at, it looked like he caught the ball,” Forest midfielder Morgan Gibbs-White said<\/a> after the game.<\/p>\n

“Whether he scores or not, for me it was still a handball.”<\/p>\n

Referees’ boss Howard Webb spoke to Forest to explain that while there could be justifiable reasons to judge this was not handball, a better decision, and one that would be expected,<\/a> is for it to be disallowed.<\/p>\n

The Premier League has a more lenient approach to handball, understanding the natural movements of players, but the VAR review should have been accepted.<\/p>\n

Webb’s view was shared by former Premier League assistant referee Darren Cann. <\/p>\n

“While I think that it is commendable to see a referee stick with his original decision, I believe that football’s expectation is Mbeumo controlling the ball, especially when it leads to a goal, outweighs the possible deflection off Mbeumo’s hip,” Cann told BBC Sport.<\/p>\n

“Mbeumo does control the ball [with his hand] and while he’s not the scorer himself, football’s expectation is for that to be disallowed.”<\/p>\n

It was only the 17th time in seven seasons – and the fourth this season – that a referee has rejected the advice of the VAR at the screen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Manchester United‘s second goal in Sunday’s Premier League win over Nottingham Forest should have been disallowed for handball,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":455230,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":["post-455229","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sports","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-sports"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455229","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=455229"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/455229\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/455230"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=455229"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=455229"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=455229"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}