On June 18, the seventh round of the Chinese Super League was filled with gunsmoke, and Shanghai Port narrowly defeated Meizhou Hakka with a score of 2-1 and won the honor of the half-way championship of the Chinese Super League. However, the focus of the match was not on the fierce rivalry between the two teams, but on the controversial decision of the referee on duty. In the game, the referee team missed at least two penalties, and whether there was a suspicion of handball in the goal of SIPG foreign player Chitadini has also become a hot topic of discussion.
At the beginning of the game, SIPG's foreign aid Gustavo fell to the ground in a fierce confrontation with Meizhou Hakka defenders in the penalty area, but this obvious foul action was judged by the referee team to be a "reasonable confrontation", thus rejecting SIPG's penalty request. In the second half, Citadeni's goal caused a heated argument between the two sides. Referee Ren Tong had a long communication with VAR referee Zhang Lei, and finally ruled that the goal was valid. During this period, Meizhou Hakka players repeatedly asked Ren Tong to check the VAR replay, but Ren Tong did not accept it, and this decision also laid the groundwork for the subsequent chaos of the game.
In addition to the above two obvious misjudgments, Meizhou Hakka player Ru Zinan also suffered a foul in the penalty area, which should also be a penalty if the penalty is strictly followed. However, Ren Tong chose to ignore it again. For Ren Tong, a young referee, the mistake may be understandable, but Zhang Lei, a veteran whistle who is the VAR referee of this game, also failed to correct these misjudgments, which is quite puzzling.
Zhang Lei was once hailed as the "queen referee" of SIPG in the past, but in recent years he has become more strict in his punishment scale for SIPG's matches. However, he did not seem to be able to give enough guidance to the referee when he officiated the SIPG match as a VAR referee. For the Meizhou Hakka, losing the controversy undoubtedly made them feel frustrated; For Shanghai Port, although they won the race and won the halfway championship, the poor performance of the referee team also cast a shadow on the victory. The issue of the penalty level of the Super League referees has once again become the focus of attention, and it seems that this problem needs to be solved urgently.