An Armenia player avoided the wrath of the referee after he hurled a water bottle an official
Armenia international defender Arman Hovhannisyan will be counting his lucky stars on Thursday after he avoided the ignominy of a red card in his team’s away fixture with Scotland – despite being captured on camera throwing a water bottle towards the linesman.
Scotland were two goals to the good in the Nations League fixture at Hamden Park when Scott McKenna appeared to make it 3-0 when he poked the ball home into an empty net – much to the objections of Armenia players who alleged that Scotland were offside in the build-up.
The referee initially allowed the goal but after consulting with VAR it was determined that McKenna was indeed offside before the goal was scored, but only after Hovhannisyan expressed his anger by lobbing the projectile towards the official.
Perhaps surprisingly, and despite the aforementioned video refereeing technology being in use in the game, Hovhannisyan wasn’t shown a yellow card by the referee for his act of insubordination.
❌ "He's a lucky boy to be on the pitch."The frustration was evident for the Armenian players as a bottle seemingly gets thrown in the direction of the linesmen! 🤯 pic.twitter.com/9rfTjXJeXa
— Premier Sports (@PremierSportsTV) June 8, 2022
The moment was noted by Aston Villa playmaker John McGinn, who appeared to appeal to the referee to take some sort of action against the Armenian player.
Speaking on the Premier Sports broadcast of the game, former Scotland striker James McFadden said: “To pick a bottle up, and even think about throwing at an official, and to get away with it; incredible.
“We have VAR, they have cameras everywhere, they should be looking at that.”
Another former player, Alan Hutton, agreed: “That’s in the direction of the linesman, that’s terrible. You should be punished for that.”
There remains a chance that Hovhannisyan might retroactively be censured by UEFA for the incident – but one would imagine that the Scots might be happy to let the episode slide after securing the three points in their Nations League fixture by two goals to nil.
