Qatar 2022: It Was A Gift – ‘Red-Faced’ Addo Frowns At Elfath’s Pen. Award To Ronaldo

Beaten by Portugal via a 3-2 margin on Thursday in their first match of the 2022 World Cup, the Black Stars felt hard done by with some of the referees officiating. Ismail Elfath awarded Portugal a rather ‘soft penalty’ converted by Cristiano Ronaldo.

Coach Otto Addo even aired post match that the penalty was “a gift offered” to the five-time Ballon d’Or winner. “If you see the action again, we were playing the ball, it was actually a foul against us,” he said.

Elfath’s decision to give a penalty against Ghana didn’t get a VAR review, perhaps one of the more reasons that led to Addo’s words post match.

If anything, it looked a coming together between Ronaldo and Salisu, but Ronaldo got the referees attention.

Otto Addo, the coach of the quarter-finalists of the 2010 World Cup stated that: ‘The referee offered a penalty which was not one.’

‘Why whistle the penalty? Because it was Ronaldo…?’ the 47-year-old further asked rhetoric questions with no immediate answers forth coming.

Immediately after the penalty was awarded, Addo reproached fourth assistant referee Stéphanie Frappart in the wake of the action but did not get any sympathy.

“When someone scores in five World Cups, you can only congratulate them, but it was really a gift. There was no penalty, it was a bad decision. I don’t know why the VAR didn’t Didn’t intervene. It’s unbelievable, maybe they were sleeping,” he insisted a few minutes later at a press conference.

“If you watch the action, we were playing the ball, it was actually even a foul against us. I asked some people from FIFA if I could talk a bit with the referee (after the game was over ), in a calm way, but they told me that it was not possible.”

Ghana and Addo need to put the decision behind them and prepare for the next game that comes in four days against South Korea before the game against Uruguay on December 2.