Phoenix swear it wasn’t handball

Louis Fenton could be fined for his foul-mouthed outburst in the aftermath of Wellington Phoenix’s controversial 3-2 loss to Melbourne City, but the club’s general manager is standing by the player for giving an ‘‘honest comment’’ on a highly contentious moment.

Fenton was left fuming after a VAR howler potentially cost the Phoenix their first point of the A-League season, dropping numerous F-bombs during his post-match interview with Fox Sports presenter Archie Thompson on Sunday.

The right-back was asked to comment on referee Ben Abraham’s decision to award a penalty for handball, a decision upheld by Video Assistant Referee Craig Zetter despite the ball hitting Fenton’s chest.

It is not a handball if the ball deflects off the player’s body but Fenton swore it did not even touch his arm.

While Dome said he did not condone the language Fenton used in his post-match interview, he sympathised with the player because he too believed the referee got it badly wrong.

‘‘The reality is that was the heat of the moment,’’ Dome said.

‘‘He’s literally just finished a game where a contentious decision swung the game against your team. The broadcaster wants greater access to players in those moments and we support that as a club, whether that be Sky or Fox, to capture the real emotion of football where we can because it’s good for fans and good for the products.

‘‘But this is sometimes what happens, you get raw emotion and there’s nothing you can do

about it.’’

Dome took up the handball howler with A-League referees adviser Strebre Delovski immediately after the match. However, he said Delovski stood by the referee’s decision.

‘‘Our position is that it’s not a penalty because it never struck his hand and Louis is adamant that it never struck his hand. If you look at the replay it does look like it hits his chest and bounces away from his body and never

goes near his hands,’’ he said.

‘‘But the thing for me is the referee is behind Louis and the ball is going away so there is no way the referee could have absolutely known it hit his hand and been a penalty.

‘‘You can’t re-referee a game so all we can do is press our case with Strebre that there was a mistake here, the mistake was made and if anything it might strengthen our case for higher quality referees for Wellington

Phoenix games because again we have a very inexperienced referee in charge of a Wellington Phoenix game.

‘‘We seem to get them more often than other teams.’’

Phoenix coach Ufuk Talay delivered a restrained response when asked about the controversial moment in his post-match press conference.

‘‘I don’t think it was our best performance to be honest today against Melbourne City but I thought we were still in with a fighting chance at 2-1, but the decision made the game a lot more difficult for us,’’ Talay said.

‘‘In my opinion I thought it came off his body first and then hit his arm after that and the new laws state that if it hits your body first and then hits your arm then it’s accidental and it’s play on, but that decision was made and that changed the game.’’

Talay was just as frustrated by the way his team let City back into the match, having taken the early lead through marquee man Gary Hooper.

City responded by scoring twice inside four first-half minutes, Connor Metcalfe beating two defenders to a Craig Noone cross and Scott Galloway cutting in from right-back and scoring a spectacular long-range goal, before Noone converted the second half penalty as a result of the handball howler.