‘Hand of Payne’ infuriates Herbert
By Liam FitzGibbon, 14 Mar 2010
- Tagged:
- A-League, Chris Payne, football, Ricki Herbert, Sydney FC, Wellington Phoenix
Wellington Phoenix coach Ricki Herbert couldn’t hide his disgust after a handball controversy involving Sydney FC striker Chris Payne in Saturday’s A-League preliminary final at the Sydney Football Stadium.
In scenes reminiscent of Diego Maradona’s famous “hand of God” and Thierry Henry’s more recent “hand of Frog” goal, Payne appeared to use his forearm to score a crucial goal in Sydney’s win, which put them into next week’s grand final against Melbourne.
Payne knocked the ball in from a Sung-Hwan Byun free kick to put Sydney 2-1 up in the 30th minute after coming on as a substitute for the injured John Aloisi.
Sydney went on to win 4-2 but Herbert and Phoenix captain Andrew Durante were filthy after the match, claiming it changed the course of the game.
Payne claimed the handball was unintentional, but Herbert questioned his ethics, claiming it was “three times worse” than Henry’s famous goal for France which denied Republic of Ireland a World Cup berth.
“It’s dreadful, come on,” Herbert said.
“Who’s going to apologise for that? At the end of the day it’s just not acceptable at this level of football, irrespective of what the result might have been at the end of the day.
“It’s poor and I think for a player to do that is unacceptable as well.
“You’ve got some comparisons around the world now, but that one’s three times as bad.
“I don’t know as a club you’ve got to consider what your ethics are like and if accepting of that then so be it.
“Why wasn’t it shown again on the big screen? Every other goal …
“It’s extremely disappointing … no different I think from how the Irish felt.”
Durante said he was certain the goal should have been disallowed.
“I saw it live, I ran straight to the linesman, I knew 100 per cent it was handball,” said Durante, who scored Wellington’s opener.
“It’s pretty funny that one.
“Such a big game, such a big occasion and something like that changes the game, it’s disappointing.
The former Newcastle defender called for more professionalism from A-League referees.
Sydney FC coach Vitezslav Lavicka said Payne admitted to a handball but said it was unintentional.
“I didn’t see it but we spoke about it a couple of moments after the game in the changing room and he said he missed the ball with his head and played an unintentional hand ball,” Lavicka said.
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March 14th 2010 @ 8:09pm
Sylvester said | March 14th 2010 @ 8:09pm | Report comment
It’s unfortunate that a player would claim a goal he knowingly didn’t score, but do you ever recall a player saying to the ref “nah, no goal, it’s off my arm?”. It’s sad, but that’s pro sport these days.
Football is one of the worst for it, intentional diving, feigning injuries, etc as earlier mentioned. Cricket too, with players claiming catches off the ground, appealing for non-existent edges, keepers with their gloves in front of the stumps.
The duty was on the officials to spot it, either in real time or with the help of technology. God forbid football should follow almost every major sport and use replays. Hundreds of millions can ride on these results, not so much in the A League but in European football. A team being demoted from the EPL or missing the Champions League on a bad call, for example.
In saying that, that hand ball may not have been the easiest to spot in the real time. It took the commentators a couple of looks to pick it up.