2022 World Cup: Penalty awarded to Portugal, a soft one - Addo

Ghana national team coach, Otto Addo has criticised the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) for awarding Cristiano Ronaldo a soft penalty in his side World Cup 3-2 defeat to Portugal on Thursday.

Ronaldo was brought down by defender, Mohammed Salisu in the second half during the encounter, which he coolly converted to give Portugal the lead in the 65th minute.

Reacting to the penalty, Addo said that the referee was quick to award Ronaldo the penalty and questioned the inability of the VAR to view the incident before the penalty was awarded.

Addo said: “The referee gave a penalty which wasn’t a penalty – everyone saw that. Why? Because it is Ronaldo or something? I think you’ve to ask the referee. I have no proof of that. We were playing the ball and then there was contact. I don’t know whether they weren’t paying or whether the VAR wasn’t paying attention.

“If you look at the replay, we played the ball, it was actually a foul against us. If somebody scores a goal, congratulations. But this was really a gift. Up to the penalty, everything was possible. Then the game got a little bit wild,” he added.

Ghana’s next match is against South Korea while Portugal play Uruguay.