April 9 – In an extraordinary decision that UEFA admit is unprecedented in their competitions, England and Norway have been ordered to replay the last few seconds of their women’s under-19 European qualifier tonight – starting with a retaken 96th-minute penalty.
UEFA have made the ruling following an English protest that the referee blundered in the original encounter on Saturday.
With Norway winning 2-1, England were handed a lifeline in the sixth minute of stoppage time when they levelled from the spot. But the German referee disallowed the goal for encroachment and Norway played out the final minute of added time.
UEFA say the laws of the game state that the official should have ordered the penalty to be retaken and its control, ethics and disciplinary body said it had no choice but to order the final moments of the game to be replayed.
“We originally wrote that Norway had qualified,” UEFA said on its website adding that instead the fixture will instead “be replayed from the minute a penalty kick was awarded to England, who were 2-1 down at the time.”
UEFA regulations uphold protests in cases of “an obvious violation of a rule by the referee that had a decisive influence on the final result of the match.”
UEFA said the referee in question had been sent home from the qualifying event being held in Northern Ireland.
The UEFA ruling states that the match will be “extended according to the discretion of the referee” who of course will now be a different official. Approximately three minutes remain to be played.
Bizarrely, both Norway and England will have to play their final group matches before replaying the final moments of their own previous clash. England play Switzerland and Norway face Northern Ireland.
In 2005, FIFA ordered an entire match to be replayed when confronted with similar circumstances in a game between Uzbekistan and Bahrain. But this is the first time it has happened in a UEFA competition and both teams must restart the game with the same players who were on the field at the moment the penalty was taken in the original match, although England will be allowed to change the spotkick taker.
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