Inter 0-1 Liverpool – Capello slams ‘scandalous penalty’ for ‘obvious simulation’

Former Milan and England head coach Fabio Capello has slammed the decision to award Liverpool a late, and decisive, penalty in the 1-0 win over Inter at San Siro, calling it ‘scandalous’ after a VAR review granted the visitors the penalty for what the Italian describes as ‘obvious simulation.’

Speaking on Sky Sport after the match, Capello said that “It is a scandalous penalty – I don’t understand why the VAR had to intervene when the referee saw it all, the obvious simulation of throwing himself to the ground.”

The match had already had its fair share of VAR drama after a Liverpool goal was disallowed earlier in the game for a handball. However, the Reds benefited from the video assistant’s intervention in the end, when Bastoni was judged to have pull the shirt of Florian Wirtz.

Capello had more criticism of the officiating this evening, saying “I don’t understand VAR tonight at all, it took 3 minutes to disallow a clear handball goal.”

Finally, the retired coach hit out at the ‘shameful’ decision, which sees Inter drop to fifth in the table, now a point behind Serie A rivals Atalanta who have leapfrogged the Nerazzurri tonight with an impressive 2-1 victory against Chelsea.

“And they called the referee for a shirt tug that means we’d have a million penalties per game. They set a precedent and it is shameful,” Capello concluded.

Inter now face over a month wait until their next Champions League game, when they welcome high-flying English giants Arsenal to San Siro.