Dominic Calvert-Lewin faced no sanction after an apparent hair contact on Chelsea defender Marc Cucurella during the FA Cup semifinal at Wembley. The incident, which occurred midway through the first half, showed downward contact from Calvert-Lewin\u2019s hand to Cucurella\u2019s long, curly hair. Cucurella immediately grabbed the back of his head.<\/p>\n
Referee Jarred Gillett did not issue a decision at the time and the match was paused for VAR official Paul Howard to check the footage. Calvert-Lewin was cleared after the review. TNT Sports commentator Darren Fletcher, who had real-time access to the VAR process and conversation, relayed that the contact was from \u201cthe flat of the hand\u201d rather than a clenched fist.<\/p>\n
The episode invited comparison with an earlier case involving Lisandro Mart\u00ednez. Only two days before the Chelsea\u2013Leeds semi, a regulatory commission acting for the FA published written reasons for denying Mart\u00ednez\u2019s appeal against a red card and three-match ban. Interim Manchester United manager Michael Carrick called that decision at the time \u201cone of the worst\u201d he\u2019s ever seen. The club had lodged an appeal arguing that Mart\u00ednez was the victim of wrongful dismissal and that the ban was \u201cexcessive.\u201d<\/p>\n
The commission rejected the appeal. It said it did not feel \u201cwith any confidence\u201d that the \u201cforce exerted\u201d by Mart\u00ednez on Calvert-Lewin\u2019s hair\/scalp was \u201cnegligible.\u201d The panel took into account Calvert-Lewin\u2019s reaction, which it said \u201csuggested that he had felt a certain amount of force exerted upon his hair\/scalp.\u201d On that basis the commission concluded the VAR interpretation of the Mart\u00ednez incident was \u201creasonable\u201d and therefore not an \u201cobvious error.\u201d The match-day announcement that followed the Mart\u00ednez review had been: \u201cAfter review, Manchester United 6 is guilty of pulling his hair – violent conduct. Final decision is red card.\u201d<\/p>\n
The contrasting outcomes have left Manchester United fans unsettled and prompted wider questions about consistency in officiating in England. The draft also notes that a clear hair pull from Fulham\u2019s Kenny Tete on Manchester City\u2019s Antoine Semenyo in February went unpunished.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Calvert-Lewin cleared after VAR review for contact on Cucurella; Mart\u00ednez appeal was rejected. Read.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":13073,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[190,702,969],"tags":[1505,1162,1553],"class_list":["post-13074","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-chelsea","category-leeds-united","category-premier-league","tag-accountability","tag-analytics","tag-bookings"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13074","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13074"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13074\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/13073"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13074"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13074"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.weplayfpl.com\/news-articles\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13074"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}