Wolverhampton Wanderers head coach Gary O'Neil has claimed that Fulham forward Carlos Vinicius was not sent off against his side because his headbutt was deemed to be "soft".
On another controversial night for VAR, Fulham were able to prevail by a 3-2 scoreline at Craven Cottage, helped by two contentious penalty decisions and a failure to dismiss Vinicius.
After the match, O'Neil revealed that he had held a conversation with referee Michael Salisbury, who said that he made a mistake by ruling that Nelson Semedo had fouled Tom Cairney and would have overruled the decision had he been advised to go to the pitchside monitor by VAR.
Salisbury has stood by VAR's decision to award Fulham a second penalty in added-on time for a foul by Joao Gomes on Harry Wilson, despite not deeming it to be a foul on-field.
Shortly before that match-deciding incident, Vinicius was involved in an exchange with Wolves defender Max Kilman, with the Brazilian appearing to aim his head towards Kilman's as he got up off the floor.
Kilman reacted by holding his nose and protesting to the referee, rather than going to ground, and it was viewed as a yellow card offence instead of a red.
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Gary O'Neil says a weird sequence of events unfolded with officials after Wolves' defeat to Fulham pic.twitter.com/uPWqwYUZKV
Further discussing his lengthy post-game debrief with Salisbury, O'Neil says that the official regarded the action as "a soft headbutt", leading to him to question whether such behaviour will now be tolerated.
Speaking to reporters at a press conference, O'Neil said: "We discussed the headbutt, which it was. He debated that a little bit with me and said that it was a soft headbutt.
"I just said that is absolutely crazy, so we can headbutt people on a football pitch and as long as it is deemed soft or not hard enough. My son watching that, millions of children watching that, we are telling people that you can headbutt people on a football pitch as longas it isn't too hard.
"But they have since come out after that, sent a representative to speak to one of my staff and said, by the letter of the law, we got that one wrong as well. It should have been a red card."
O'Neil added that the representative said the same thing regarding a second yellow card for a foul by Tim Ream on Hwang Hee-chan for Wolves' penalty, which brought the game back on level terms.
Wolves have now arguably been cost as many as seven points by contentious VAR decisions during 2023-24, although there is an argument that they were fortunate to avoid conceding a late penalty against Aston Villa in October - a game that finished 1-1 - through a push by Matt Doherty on Ollie Watkins.
Darren Plant
