Referee Howard Webb has been defended by UEFA officials following his decision to award a last minute penalty to Austria during their Group B game against Poland.
The English official adjudged that Poland midfielder Mariusz Lewandowski pulled down Austria defender Sebastian Prodl and awarded a penalty that was converted by Ivica Vastic.
That denied Poland victory in Vienna, leaving both sides with one point from their opening two Group B fixtures.
Poland coach Leo Beenhakker was unhappy with the desision and marched on to the pitch to confront Webb after the final whistle had been blown.
However, the referee has received the full backing of UEFA, who claim that the decision to award the penalty was correct.
“We don’t think it’s controversial that when a player is pulled down by the shirt with both hands a penalty is given, there is nothing controversial about that,” said Uefa’s director of communications, William Gaillard.
“You saw that the free-kick was taken twice, there was a lot of wrestling in the area, it’s probably why he took the decision. It was certainly within the rules of the game, that’s for sure.
“Maybe he could see that this particular foul was worse than he had seen in the rest of the game.”
Beenhakker, said: “I don’t know why the referee saw what nobody else saw, maybe he just wanted to show he was a big boy.”
Poland’s prime minister Donald Tusk joined Beenhakker in criticising Webb, admitting he ‘wanted to kill’ after the decision.
“As the prime minister I have to be balanced and collected,” he said in Warsaw. “But last night I was speaking very differently about the whole thing, I wanted to kill.
“Referees make mistakes and this was an obvious error that harmed us all. I thought it would have been better if we had lost in the first half when Austria had their chances and not after 93 minutes due to an obvious mistake.”
