Why were Bayern Munich not given a penalty against PSG for a handball by João Neves?

Handball controversy in the Champions League? Who would have thought it? Bayern Munich were left reeling in the first half of their semifinal against PSG on two occasions, appealing for a penalty for a perceived offense by João Neves, moments after they felt Nuno Mendes should have been shown a second yellow card.

Let’s take things chronologically.

Why wasn’t Nuno Mendes sent off for handball?

With a little more than half an hour gone, Mendes, who had been booked for a foul on Michael Olise, blocked a forward pass from Konrad Laimer with his arm. The defender, along with much of Bayern, furiously appealed for the PSG man to be shown a second yellow.

However, Laimer was himself penalized for a handball a second or two earlier, cutting the sequence short and sparing Mendes from a potential dismissal.

Bayern penalty appeal waved away

Moments later, with the ball inside the PSG penalty area, Vitinha cleared his lines and sent the ball high into the air. Only teammate João Neves was directly in its path and contorted his body in an unorthodox attempt to get out of the way.

As he did so, he lifted his arm and inadvertently blocked the ball with his hand. Referee João Pinheiro deemed there was no deliberate attempt to handle the ball, which would have made little sense given that Neves had prevented his own teammate from clearing to safety, keeping the ball alive inside the PSG box instead.

In any case, the laws of soccer state that handball will not be called if a player is “hit on the hand/arm by the ball which has been played by a team-mate (unless the ball goes directly into the opponents’ goal or the player scores immediately afterwards, in which case a direct free kick is awarded to the other team)”.

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