{"id":529169,"date":"2026-04-13T21:04:09","date_gmt":"2026-04-13T21:04:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/529169\/"},"modified":"2026-04-13T21:04:09","modified_gmt":"2026-04-13T21:04:09","slug":"former-pgmol-chief-backs-clement-over-ipswich-penalty-call","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/529169\/","title":{"rendered":"Former PGMOL chief backs Clement over Ipswich penalty call"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\n  Backhouse\u2019s performance has come under heavy scrutiny following Norwich City\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pinkun.com\/sport\/matchreports\/26012792.norwich-city-0-2-ipswich-town-match-report-player-ratings\/?ref=ed_direct\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">2-0 East Anglian derby defeat<\/a>, amid a number of controversial decisions.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  The most notable came after nine minutes, when Town were awarded a spot-kick following a challenge by Anis Ben Slimane on Jack Taylor, despite play initially being waved on with Norwich breaking on the counter-attack.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Replays appeared to show the Tunisian made no contact with the Town midfielder, who went to ground.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  <img   width=\"100%\"\/>Jaden Philogene-Bidace converts the penalty to hand Ipswich the lead (Image: Paul Chesterton\/Focus Images Ltd)\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Jaden Philogene converted the resulting penalty to give the Blues an early advantage, with George Hirst adding a second just before half-time as Ipswich recorded a first Carrow Road win since 2006.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  Hackett, who has extensive experience refereeing at the top level, felt the Canaries had every right to feel frustrated by the decision.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u201cFor me, Norwich can feel very aggrieved that a penalty was awarded against them,\u201d said Hackett, speaking to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.footballinsider247.com\/keith-hackett-reacts-to-norwich-city-vs-ipswich-town-penalty-controversy-after-analysing-footage\/?ref=ed_direct\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Football Insider<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u201cIpswich were rather fortunate to get a penalty here. The ball was being cleared. I think it was a genuine challenge for the ball. I don\u2019t think a foul took place.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u201cThe referee initially looked and was making his way up the field when he suddenly stopped, turned and awarded a penalty.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u201cI immediately looked to the assistant. Did he flag? Absolutely not. He was satisfied that everything was okay and was also running up the field.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u201cSo, for me, Norwich can feel very aggrieved that a penalty was awarded against them.\u201d\n<\/p>\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  City\u2019s Belgian head coach did not hold back in his post-match press conference, labelling Taylor a &#8216;cheat&#8217; and reiterating his strong belief in the need for video assistant referees (VAR) in the Championship.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u201cThen you get a penalty against, which is totally not a penalty, for me,\u201d said Clement.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u201cAnis wants to clear the ball and the other player (Taylor) sees that moment to be a little bit faster than him, a split-second.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u201cHe then dives into Anis and Anis does not touch his leg like he is pretending. We make a transition in that moment, and four or five seconds later there is a decision to give a penalty against.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u201cThat is a game-decisive moment. This game is about small margins with two good teams who want to play.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u201cI do not know (if it was given by the assistant), to be honest. In the end, we can talk about it for ten minutes, but it will not change anything because the decision has been made.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  <img   width=\"100%\"\/>Norwich City boss Clement was very vocal about the decision post-match (Image: PA)\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u201cBecause of that, like I have said for weeks, I am a fan of VAR to avoid these moments. This was never a penalty with VAR, never.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u201cThis is a player trying to cheat,\u201d <a href=\"https:\/\/www.pinkun.com\/sport\/interviews\/26012562.norwich-city-0-2-ipswich-clement-championship-reaction\/?ref=ed_direct\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">he continued<\/a>.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u201cLike he has been caught by a tackle, which was not the case. But he wins in this situation, and if you do not have an objective view on these things, more players will try to do this.\n<\/p>\n<p>\n  \u201cI know the referee cannot always be in the right position to see everything, but that is why they need help. In football, too many games are decided by one or two moments. Those decisions need to be right.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Backhouse\u2019s performance has come under heavy scrutiny following Norwich City\u2019s 2-0 East Anglian derby defeat, amid a number&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":529170,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[33],"tags":[218,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-529169","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-football","tag-football","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529169","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=529169"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/529169\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/529170"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=529169"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=529169"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=529169"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}