UEFA referees’ chief confirms VAR cleared decision not to award Scotland penalty

VAR did check and clear the decision not to award Scotland a penalty in their decisive Euro 2024 group game against Hungary, UEFA referees’ chief Roberto Rosetti has said.

Scotland felt they should have been awarded a spot-kick when Stuart Armstrong was challenged by defender Willi Orban, but their appeals were waved away by Argentinian referee Facundo Tello.

Rosetti said on Friday that the VAR had looked at the incident and decided  Armstrong had moved towards the defender and drawn contact.

Hungary went on to win the match 1-0, a result which eliminated Scotland from the tournament.

Scotland head coach Steve Clarke said it was “100 per cent” a penalty and questioned the purpose of VAR “if they are not going to come in for something like that”.

Rosetti was asked about the incident at a referees’ briefing on Friday and said: “This was a very, very tough match with a couple of controversial incidents. There was one in the 68th minute where there was a possible penalty, because John McGinn was pulling the opponent’s shirt.

“Then there was the incident at minute 79. The attacker Armstrong was in front of the Hungarian (Orban). If you watch it from the camera behind, there was movement of the attacker towards the Hungarian.

“The VARs are checking everything, the VAR checked this situation. They decided that this was just a physical contact trying to challenge the defender.”

Rosetti would not be drawn on whether, in his view, the decision was the correct one.

Rosetti did confirm that Tello has been appointed as a fourth official for Saturday’s last-16 match between Switzerland and Italy.