There is nothing to punish Spartak Chernov, who played for some time in the match with Zenit without boots, says Nikolaev

Ex-FIFA referee Alexei Nikolaev on the air of Match TV answered the question of the ex-football player of the Russian national team Vladimir Bystrov about the episode of the match of the 8th round of the WORLD RPL Spartak – Zenit, when Muscovites defender Nikita Chernov played for about two minutes in one boot.

The meeting of the teams took place on Sunday in Moscow and ended with the score 2:1 in favor of Zenit. The game was served by a team of referees headed by Pavel Kukuyan.

– There was a funny episode when Chernov lost his boot and for a minute and a half or two, probably held it in his hands, ran with it. Should there be some kind of punishment?

– An interesting episode turned out to be quite rare. I would not say that this is a violation of the equipment. It was a game situation, there is nothing to punish the defender for. It’s good that he finished the episode, even in one boot. I think the referee could have asked Chernov to leave to put on his boot, but I am sure that Kukuyan did not see this situation himself.

In the second half, it was easier for Kukuyan, because after the second goal of Zenit, the game calmed down a bit. There are fewer violations, game martial arts. But closer to the 80th minute, the degree of the game rose again, and yellow cards appeared, rightly issued by the referee. Pavel coped with the work, let the teams play. We often talk about refereeing when there is some kind of negative, but it’s also great to note the good work of the entire refereeing team, ”Nikolaev said in the After Football with Georgy Cherdantsev program on Match TV.