A Paris penalty robbed Newcastle of a memorable brace against PSG in November. But VAR’s decision to intervene and award the penalty that allowed Kylian Mbappe to equalise could have other consequences. This could have a significant monetary impact for other teams in the first division.
This move goes a long way to explaining why Newcastle left Europe at the end of December. This could have big consequences for England’s European teams next season. Let’s remember how things unfolded.
Newcastle travelled to PSG on 29 November for this season’s UEFA Champions League matchday. The Magpies were hoping to repeat the heroics of their memorable 4-1 win over the same opponents on matchday two.
While the home win saw Newcastle dominate the game, it was more of a classic away performance. Alexander Isak scored a clinical goal in the first half. Newcastle defended brilliantly and Nick Pope made several important saves.
Time is running out, it seemed that Newcastle had achieved a memorable double against the French champions. However, time had a ruthless turn in store.
As PSG desperately tried to equalize, a cross deflected off Tino Livramento’s chest and the ball bounced off his arm.
Referee Szymon Marciniak had been surrounded several times by PSG players in the second half. He needed all the joy he had gained refereeing important matches such as the 2022 World Cup final. And he didn’t see anything in that incident that recommended it be a fine.
However, video assistant referee Tomasz Kwiatkowski thought otherwise and asked Marciniak to pass on the screen. There, Marciniak basically saw a frozen image of handball. The on-field examination did not look at the context in which the ball was leaving Livramento’s body. Marciniak scores a penalty, which Mbappé takes.
UEFA seemed to agree with me, Tim Sherwood and the rest of Team Sky. VAR Kwiatkowski was suspended for the remainder of this week’s European action. However, there was very little follow-up to the incident. As with the VAR issues in the Premier League, we haven’t heard of any systemic learning and improvement procedures that could prevent this mistake from happening again.
Newcastle were completely eliminated from Europe the following day with a 2-1 defeat at home to AC Milan. Newcastle had led the match. When Milan equalised, Newcastle did everything they could to get the win. Even though they were punished on the counter-attack, I still like Howe’s decision. Like NFL groups aiming for fourth place, I think it’s smart to be bold. The rewards would have been wonderful if Newcastle had won the match and qualified for the knockout stages.
In recent days I have realised that this decision has not only affected Newcastle’s season, but could also have a profound effect on other English teams.
This is due to the new format of the Champions League next season. In this format, an additional Champions League position will be awarded to each of the two countries whose groups performed best in Europe last season. Depriving Newcastle of that result – and their progress in Europe – could have had a huge impact on this race for one more Champions League spot.
This is where things get technical. UEFA determines which country has performed most productively in Europe through its coefficient issuance formula. This is the same issuance formula used for organizations ranked in the organization-level draws in their competitions.
The core of the coefficient formula is simple. A team is rewarded:
The resolution here took 1 point off Newcastle’s coefficient and gave it to PSG. And I think it also takes a toll on Newcastle for their participation in the round of 16 of a European competition. Qualification for the Champions League round of 16 earns five bonus points, while the Europa League round of 16 earns 1 of those points.
Currently, England is the third most productive acting country this season. We decide this by taking the coefficient of each team as described above. Each country’s total is then divided by the number of groups that qualified for Europe. For this season, England’s overall is divided into 8 as there are 8 English groups that have played in Europe.
Below, I’ve created a visualization using the existing figures from Bert Kassies’ perfect UEFA European Cup football site. (A site I highly recommend. It’s an exceptional resource that I’ve been employing for over 20 years. UEFA’s official online page is disgraced by those kinds of technical details. )
Had it not been for the penalty conceded against Newcastle in Paris, it is possible that they would have reached the last 16 of the Europa League or even the Champions League. The scenario is radically different, with England ahead of Germany in the current standings.
Aston Villa and Tottenham look set to fight hard for fourth place this season, but if England could clinch a fifth position in the Champions League, it would be much less significant.
Similarly, if fifth position is also a position for the Champions League, then Manchester United are much more likely to qualify than they are now. He is looking to regain his position in the verbal exchange for fourth place, and overtaking Spurs and Villa is much more likely than overtaking them both.
All of this will also have an additional ripple effect on the leaderboard. If England achieve a fifth-place finish in the Champions League, existing Europa League and League Conference places will be allocated to the next groups in the table.
All this shows that this sanction resolution was enormous. It was huge not only for Newcastle, but could have a profound impact on European qualification and the increasingly disputed world of club finances.
Of course, we’re still just talking about the European rankings. It’s hard to call this the ultimate resolution of the season. It remains the Tottenham-Liverpool VAR fiasco that may be huge in itself when it comes to deciding this season’s already tight race for the name.
Mbappe celebrated with wonderful relief after scoring the equaliser in November. But for many English teams, the tension will increase in the coming months. They may wonder if their club will end up paying this Parisian penalty.