Journalist explains technicality may have allowed Romero to escape punishment for hair pull

Football.London’s Alasdair Gold has explained that a technicality regarding the implementation of VAR may have prevented Cristian Romero from escaping punishment against Chelsea.

In the lead-up to the corner kick that Harry Kane eventually scored the equaliser from, Romero was seen pulling Marc Cucurella’s hair and bringing down the Chelsea defender.

Thomas Tuchel insisted in his post-match press conference that Tottenham’s second goal should not have stood and that the Argentine should have been sent off for what he did (Hayters TV).

According to BBC Sport’s Simon Stone, the Tottenham centre-back is not expected to face any retrospective punishment as the incident was checked by VAR during the game.

Gold has now explained that VAR had to check the incident and deem it to be violent conduct to intervene.

This is because the system can only intervene and ask the official to have a second look at an incident if there is a game-challenging element to it, such as if it results in a goal or a red card. The system cannot be used to simply make a call on potential free kicks.

Further, the journalist adds that unlike in rugby, football’s rules do not mandate a specific punishment for hair pulling, which is why VAR might have not deemed Romero’s actions to be violent conduct.

Spurs Web Opinion

There is no doubt that officials will be keeping a closer eye on Romero from now on as the Argentine is quickly building a reputation of being dirty. He was lucky to escape without punishment on Sunday and I hope Conte has a word with the 24-year-old about his antics as he could have quite easily cost us a point.

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