The extremely soft red card and penalty in favour of Chelsea was just the latest incident in a long run of controversial refereeing decisions that went against Milan in Europe in recent years.
The Rossoneri were out of the Champions League for seven years and one season accepted being out of Europe altogether in order to wipe out their Financial Fair Play issues once the club had been taken over by new owners.
It’s a long way from the club that used to dominate world football and has won the Champions League/European Cup on seven occasions, most recently in 2006-07.
Fans also believe that lost superpower status is also one of the reasons why they’ve been on the receiving end of some debatable refereeing decisions lately.
Most English and Italian pundits have said the red card and penalty against Fikayo Tomori for placing a hand on Mason Mount’s shoulder was extremely harsh and ruined the Champions League match with Chelsea after just 18 minutes.
That is still nowhere near as contentious as some of the decisions that went against Milan last season, when they finished bottom of their group.
The Corriere della Sera outlined some of the controversial situations that so infuriated the Diavolo in 2021-22.
In the 2-1 home defeat to Atletico Madrid in September 2021, a penalty was awarded to Atleti in the final moments for Pierre Kalulu’s handball.
What the referee and VAR did not point out was that before it struck Kalulu, it hit Thomas Lemar on the hand first, so should’ve been a free kick in favour of Milan.
In October 2021, Porto beat Milan 1-0 thanks to a Luis Diaz goal, but in the build-up Mehdi Taremi appeared to barge Ismael Bennacer off the ball.
There were problems in the Europa League Round of 16 the season before that too.
The 1-1 draw away to Manchester United in March 2021 saw Franck Kessie’s spectacular chest and volley disallowed using VAR for handball, despite the fact the images did not prove conclusively that the midfielder had used his arm to control the ball.
If in doubt, the attacker is generally given the benefit of the doubt, but not in this case.
There is nothing controversial In this decision,the rules are clear.my Milan are not fortunate enough in the champions league against strong opponent like Chelsea and last season athletico Madrid.
Yesterday’s incident should be shouldered by tomori,the best decision to do is to allow the player to take his chance.playing Chelsea with 9men on the field is not easy for his teammates.
Great artcile Susy! Grazie.
Best way to stop these kind of weird refreees is have do same when German team games refereed by italian refree. German is tough but once hit them hard they back down
Tomori should have gotten a yellow card and a pk should have been awarded. Harsh call in my mind!
Definitely a yellow and penalty. But no way a red card . I am a Chelsea Fan. But also Honest
Sam Sardo: it’s a foul in penalty area so it’s red card, not lenient. Tomori’s trying to pull Mount’s shoulder using his hand.