Ex-FIFA referee Alexei Nikolaev, on the air of the 8-16 program at MATCH PREMIER, spoke about the work of referees in the games of the 7th round of the WORLD RPL Akhmat – Wings of the Soviets (1: 2) and Rostov – CSKA (0 :0).

– Akhmat will demand the cancellation of the red card of goalkeeper Mikhail Oparin. Who do you think will take?

– I can’t argue who will take it – the decision of the ESC RFU is like a law for everyone. Difficult episode. The most important thing is who plays the ball. In this situation, if you look closely, the goalkeeper does not have time to play the ball and knocks down the attacker. I can only support the decision of the chief arbiter.

– Joint between Glebov and Chalov in the match “Rostov” – CSKA. What was there?

– Tough episode. I think he will be one of the main ones at the ESC meeting, because not a single replay from any camera gives us an understanding of who played the ball. Here, as in other similar situations, if the attacker plays the ball first, and the defender does not have time and hits the leg, this is a penalty. We cannot say that it was an obvious mistake of the referee (Vitaly Meshkov – ed.). Probably, VAR did not intervene in this episode, considering the decision of the judge to be correct.

– Is it a penalty?

– I can’t say for 100% that this is an erroneous decision of the referee. Not a single repetition convinces me that the striker played the ball first.

Isn’t the movement of the ball an argument?

– If it comes to that, then in terms of the sequence with the episode from the game CSKA – “Torch”, the referee had reason to look at the VAR monitor and appoint a 11-meter penalty. Then he would be consistent in decision-making,” Nikolaev said on the air of MATCH PREMIER.

Earlier, the media reported that CSKA and Akhmat applied to the expert and refereeing commission under the President of the Russian Football Union (ESK RFU) following the results of the 7th round of the WORLD RPL.