Two Russian match officials will be given polygraph tests after being branded 'clowns' over a penalty row in Spartak Moscow's draw with Sochi, following which the Moscow club's owner threatened to pull the team from the league. Sochi were awarded a dubious 90th-minute penalty at the Otkritie Arena in Moscow which Christian Noboa duly converted to earn a 2-2 draw in the teams' opening game of the new Russian Premier League season on Sunday. The visitors had earlier converted a first-half spot-kick to bring themselves back into the game after Spartak had raced into a 2-0 lead after just 10 minutes.
Both penalties against Spartak were awarded by referee Vasily Kazartsev (photo) with the help of the Video Assistant Referee (VAR), although the second in particular was highly controversial after Sochi substitute Anatoli Nemchenko went down under contact from Samuel Gigot despite the Spartak defender appearing to stop short of challenging the midfielder. Referee Kazartsev has been suspended over the decisions while a ruling is yet to be made on VAR Alexey Eskov. According to reports in the Russian media, both men will have to take lie detector tests to answer questions over the integrity of the decisions during the game. Polygraphs have previously been used to question match officials and Russian Football Union employees where there is the suspicion of bias or potential betting irregularities.
Source: RT
