UEFA break silence on Scotland v Hungary penalty decision and unseen John McGinn incident

UEFA's chief of refereeing has hit back over suggestions that Scotland were denied a clear penalty in their Euro 2024 defeat to Hungary last Sunday.

Scotland exited the tournament after the last-gasp 1-0 loss in Stuttgart which left head coach Steve Clarke furious with a decision not to award his side a spot-kick when Stuart Armstrong went down in the box under a challenge from Willi Orban.

Clarke went as far as to question why Argentinean referee Facundo Tello was in charge of the match, stating: "Why is he here? Why is there not a European referee?”. He added: “It's a penalty. I do not know for the life of me why it's not given."

Scotland's Stuart Armstrong falls under the challenge of Hungary defender Willi Orban but no penalty was awarded. (Photo by FABRICE COFFRINI/AFP via Getty Images)

Spanish VAR official Alejandro Hernandez also chose not to intervene and UEFA's managing director of refereeing, Roberto Rosetti, has claimed the correct decision was made as he accused Armstrong of intiating the contact. He also inisted that Scotland were fortunate not to have a penalty awarded against them after pointing out a shirt pull by John McGinn in Hungary’s penalty box shortly before the Armstrong incident.

Speaking during a media summit held to discuss controversial decisions during Euro 2024, Rosetti said: "In this match there were two controversial situations. Two! One was a clear pulling in the penalty area but you don’t mention that? And then there was the Armstrong situation which was checked and decided in this way. There was one, for example, in minute 68 when there was a possible penalty because No. 7 of Scotland - John McGinn - was pulling the opponent’s shirt just before the incident (Stuart Armstrong). So this was one of the possible penalties.

“Then there was of course in minute 79 in the penalty area of Hungary another incident. This was, let’s say, in favour of Hungary when the attacker of Scotland - Armstrong - was in front of the Hungarian. If you watch it from behind the camera, there was a movement of the attacker towards the Hungarian. So another controversial decision. Of course the VAR checked it - they check everything. They checked the previous one and the second one and they decided it was just physical contact. This is what happened on the pitch.

“There was no intervention because in their opinion the attacker changed the direction towards the defender and in his opinion it was just a physical contact to challenge the defender. It was checked and in the end there was no intervention.”

Scotland v Hungary referee Tello has been named as fourth official for Saturday's last-16 clash between Switzerland and Italy.

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