Manchester City winger Raheem Sterling apologises to referee after penalty controversy

EPA
Joe Krishnan7 November 2018

Raheem Sterling has apologised to referee Viktor Kassai after being wrongly awarded a penalty in Manchester City's 6-0 thrashing of Shakhtar Donetsk.

City were already leading 1-0 when Sterling went down in the penalty area after appearing to have been tripped by Mykola Matviyenko. However, replays showed the England forward actually kicked the turf before falling to the ground.

At the time, Sterling didn't inform the referee that he wasn't clipped but took the opportunity after the game to apologise to the Hungarian official.

"I went to chip the ball and don't know what happened," he told BT Sport. "I didn't feel contact. I scuffed the ball. Apologies to the ref."

REUTERS

City coach Pep Guardiola believes Sterling should have informed the referee after the Spaniard appeared to spot the incident from the sidelines.

"We realised it wasn't a penalty," he said. "Raheem could have told the referee. We don't like to score in that situation.

"The game is so fast these days. It takes 10 seconds for somebody to say something to the referee."

Sterling scored his third goal in two games with a stunning 20-yard curler after a brilliant solo run. Gabriel Jesus also netted a hat-trick along with goals from Riyad Mahrez and David Silva to seal an emphatic win.

In Pictures | Champions League gameweek 4 | Nov 6-7, 2018

1/47

Pep Guardiola's side will have to wait until matchday five to seal their progress to the knockout round but the 23-year-old said it was important to get the three points after losing their first group game.

"It was a massive win," he added. "The Lyon match [1-2 home defeat in September] was one of those a wake-up calls. You lose the ball and these good teams can punish you."

Create a FREE account to continue reading

eros

Registration is a free and easy way to support our journalism.

Join our community where you can: comment on stories; sign up to newsletters; enter competitions and access content on our app.

Your email address

Must be at least 6 characters, include an upper and lower case character and a number

You must be at least 18 years old to create an account

* Required fields

Already have an account? SIGN IN

By clicking Create Account you confirm that your data has been entered correctly and you have read and agree to our Terms of use , Cookie policy and Privacy policy .

This site is protected by reCAPTCHA and the Google Privacy Policy and Terms of Service apply.

Thank you for registering

Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in