Amad fell in the penalty area midway through the second half and was grabbed by the arm by Bournemouth defender Adrian Truffert. Referee Stuart Attwell rejected the appeal for a penalty and the Cherries advanced to the other end, leveling the scores seconds later.
United have already been given a penalty for pulling Matheus Cunha’s shirt, and Harry Maguire was sent off for putting his arm on Evanilsson, while also conceding a spot-kick, an incident that is very similar to the incident involving Amad and Truffert.
Michael Carrick and United officials were upset by the 2-2 draw, but the KMI committee voted 3-2 in favor of Attwell’s call, concluding that VAR Craig Pawson’s choice not to intervene was equally justified.
According to BBC Sport, the committee believed that “while there was a risk to Truffert, the contact was not shocking so it was below the high threshold for a foul” and that Pawson’s decision not to intervene was “in line with the high threshold for VAR to be overruled”.
Carrick described the decision not to award a penalty as “astonishing” after the match, and did not hide his displeasure at the post-match press conference.
“My first (thought) is that he’s definitely got one of them wrong, because he’s giving one penalty for the same thing as not giving one penalty for a two-armed grab,” he added. “So he gave away Matheus’ shot, but he didn’t give away Amad’s second shot. I think it’s about the same, but the fact is you give someone in the box two hands and they control the ball.
“For me, it’s two penalties, but it’ll be interesting to see which one he admits is wrong, the penalty we got or the penalty we didn’t get. And that’s a big moment. And instead of giving it away, they go down to the other side and score. Just because they scored when in reality it was a penalty, it takes a bigger penalty to overturn it, and if you’ve already given a penalty, it should be a penalty.”
“Really, it’s a little puzzling to understand. And with them scoring, the game turned around a little bit and changed. After that, we defended well with 10 men and the players who came off the bench finished the game very strongly. It was a big plus for us to get the points later on. We saw them winning in the second half here, so we accept that, but one of the penalties is surprising. I have to say one of them must have been wrong.”
The KMI committee upheld the penalty given to Alex Jimenez for pulling Cunha up 5-0 and the red card of Maguire 4-1 for a foul on Evanilsson.
Controversy surrounding the match has been rife throughout this week, with Maguire facing charges from the FA for verbally abusing the fourth official as he left the pitch.
