By Chris Wright
Both the FA and UEFA have confirmed that the England Women’s U19 team will have to replay their recent European Championship qualifier against Norway in Belfast after a refereeing error in stoppage time saw England succumb to a 2-1 defeat that ended their hopes of qualification.
Trailing 2-1 at the time, things began to look up for England when they were awarded a 96th-minute penalty.
Arsenal defender Leah Williamson (wearing the No.15 shirt in the team photo above) successfully converted the spot-kick to level the score only to see referee Marija Kurtes disallow the goal for encroachment.
Then, instead of correctly allowing the kick to be retaken, the German official restarted the game with a freekick to Norway, who proceeded to play down the final 30 seconds and escape with the win and secure their own qualification in the process.
However, having originally ratified the result, UEFA have issued a statement today confirming that the game is to be replayed…but from the 96th onward!
The UEFA statement reads:
“We originally wrote that Norway had qualified. But on 8th April the UEFA Control, Ethics and Disciplinary Body (CEDB) announced that Norway’s game against England on 4th April will be replayed from the minute a penalty kick was awarded to England, who were 2-1 down at the time.”
UEFA also confirmed that referee Kurtes has been sent home from the qualifying event being held in Northern Ireland.
The England-Norway game has been officially rescheduled and will restart from the penalty spot at the Seaview Stadium in Belfast at 9:45pm on Thursday evening.
Bizarrely, however, both Norway and England will play their final group matches before the final minute of their fixture is replayed, with England playing Switzerland and Norway squaring off against Northern Ireland.
Seeing as though the winners of each group and the best runner-up from across all six groups go through to the tournament in Israel this summer, it’s entirely possible that both England and Norway may still qualify together should Williamson tuck her spot-kick away!
That’s one hell of a penalty kick to restart a game on.
(Via Guardian)