{"id":508002,"date":"2026-04-02T00:21:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-02T00:21:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/508002\/"},"modified":"2026-04-02T00:21:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-02T00:21:09","slug":"sonia-bompastor-chelsea-boss-slams-var-as-katie-mccabe-avoids-red-card-for-hair-pull","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/508002\/","title":{"rendered":"Sonia Bompastor: Chelsea boss slams VAR as Katie McCabe avoids red card for hair pull"},"content":{"rendered":"

Chelsea boss Sonia Bompastor said her players “do not deserve that level of refereeing” after Arsenal’s Katie McCabe avoided a red card for pulling Alyssa Thompson’s hair during their Champions League quarter-final exit.<\/p>\n

The Blues were chasing a late leveller after scoring a stoppage-time goal to make it 3-2 on aggregate when McCabe reached out and tugged Thompson’s hair.<\/p>\n

The American winger was breaking forward, but McCabe escaped a yellow card and the video assistant referee (VAR) did not advise referee Frida Mia Klarlund to review the incident.<\/p>\n

Bompastor was shown a yellow card for angrily protesting against the decision and then sent off for her continued outburst – although she refused to leave the touchline as Arsenal held on to reach the semi-finals<\/a>.<\/p>\n

The Frenchwoman arrived prepared with her mobile phone so she could show a replay of the incident as she gave a furious interview to BBC Two.<\/p>\n

“For me, it is clearly a red card for the Arsenal player. She’s pulling Alyssa Thompson’s hair,” Bompastor said. <\/p>\n

“If the VAR is not able to check that situation, I don’t know why we have the VAR.<\/p>\n

“I’m the one getting a red card when I think the Arsenal player should be the one getting a red card.”<\/p>\n

Shortly after full-time, McCabe posted on Instagram: “I just want to clarify that I was genuinely reaching for the shirt. I wouldn’t ever want to pull someone’s hair. Full respect to Thompson.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Chelsea boss Sonia Bompastor said her players “do not deserve that level of refereeing” after Arsenal’s Katie McCabe…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":508003,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[59,101,56,54,55],"class_list":{"0":"post-508002","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-gb","9":"tag-sports","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom","12":"tag-unitedkingdom"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508002","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=508002"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/508002\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/508003"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=508002"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=508002"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=508002"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}