Ex-PGMOL chief calls for retrospective punishment after what he witnessed at Anfield on Saturday

Former PGMOL chief executive Keith Hackett was incensed by one thing he witnessed during Liverpool’s latest Premier League fixture.

The Reds were given a glorious opportunity to take the lead after half an hour against Burnley at Anfield when referee Andy Madley awarded the home side a penalty for a foul by Florentino Luis on Cody Gakpo.

Mike Dean and Michael Dawson on Sky Sports’ Soccer Saturday both felt that the awarding of the spot kick was ‘soft’, and they may have privately been pleased to see Dominik Szoboszlai failing to convert from 12 yards as he struck the crossbar.

Hackett accuses Gakpo of ‘cheating’ on Saturday

Hackett went much further in his condemnation of the decision, accusing the Liverpool forward of a ‘dive’ and calling for retrospective suspensions to be meted out to players who are ‘trying to cheat’.

The ex-PGMOL chief told Football Insider: “This is a dive, and not a very good one. No way is this a penalty, and it’s not even a clever one. Next, you really start to question the match official, and what he’s seen, and also what VAR are doing to allow him to get to that decision.

“This was nowhere near a penalty. There are acts of simulation where players are really good, fooling referees, and you need a few replays to rule it out. This is why I’ve said we need a panel on a Monday, with a view to suspensions for players trying to cheat. We all want to win, but let’s win properly.”

Gakpo didn’t cheat – there was contact on him

While we admit that Gakpo certainly seemed to exagerrate the level of contact from Florentino, replays show that the Burnley midfielder caught Liverpool’s number 18 with a clumsy challenge, so Madley will likely feel justified in awarding the penalty.

To us, it definitely wasn’t a case of blatant cheating from the Dutchman – it wasn’t as though there was zero contact on him and he was purely trying to con the referee.

Setting that incident aside, we obviously don’t condone out-and-out gamesmanship in football, and we’d hate the thought of anyone in an LFC shirt going out with the intention of cheating to try and get opposition players penalised in the form of penalties or yellow/red cards.

In this tech-savvy era, footballers will know that there are so many cameras and camera angles at the highest level that any blatant cheating will be exposed, and the consequences they face could be severe, not to mention the reputational damage which’d ensue.

You can watch Slot’s full post-Burnley press conference below, via Empire of the Kop on YouTube:

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