Trevor Kettle, the chief refereeing officer of the All India Football Federation (AIFF), on Monday thumbed down East Bengal’s claim that they were denied a penalty against Mohun Bagan Super Giant during the ISL-XI derby in Guwahati on Saturday.

In the injury time of the first half, midfielder Lalengmawia ‘Apuia’ Ralte seemingly used his hand inside the penalty box to stop PV Vishnu’s goal-bound poke.

Referee Ramachandran Venkatesh, who was close to the action, did not heed East Bengal’s appeal for a penalty and signalled ‘play-on’.

“No! It was not a handball. The simple fact is the Bagan player’s hand was clearly in a justified position. There was no movement away from his body to make contact with the ball. Indeed when the ball strikes the hand and it did... you can clearly see the player was trying to withdraw his arm away. So there was no deliberate action to handle the ball,” Kettle, a former Premier League assistant referee, said during a virtual media interaction organised by the AIFF.

“I was anticipating this question from the media and after the game, I immediately convened a meeting of the Key Match Incident Review Panel. This is not my decision or view. The panel has current AFC assessors and former Fifa match officials and the unanimous decision was it was not handball.

“Referee (Venkatesh) was absolutely correct in his decision,” the 58-year-old Englishman, hired by the AIFF in October 2022, added.

“I gave clear direction to the referees this year and that came out from the head coaches survey that I did on whether they are concerned about the interpretation of the handball. It’s simple. I told referees ‘ask yourself one question’. When the ball hits the hand or the arm was it in a justified position? As we all know, when the ball strikes the hand or the arm there is always an appeal for a handball and if that happens inside the penalty area there is a cry for a penalty.

“So the direction is this. If the hand is in a justified position for that player’s action, it’s not handball. If it’s unjustified it’s handball. A player’s arm automatically comes out when you kick in the ball at his direction.”

Kettle said that handball is a tricky issue for match officials.

“The handball interpretation is very difficult for referees. The laws of the game are very subjective and there is widespread concern within football about interpreting the law. I think handball is very badly understood across football by those who do not operate within the officiating capacity. If the ball hits the hand or arm, it’s not an offence in its own right. It’s always subjective.”