West Ham United co-chairman David Gold has blasted officials for failing to look at the big screen to make a handball decision in his side’s surprise 3-1 friendly defeat to Sydney FC.
The Hammers suffered a second successive loss on their pre-season tour of New Zealand, having been beaten 2-1 by Wellington Phoenix in Auckland three days ago.
Gold’s gripe centred around Corey Gameiro’s second goal of the game just after the hour mark, when referee Nick Waldron did not spot Terry Antonis’ handball in the build-up.
After the game the veteran businessman took to social media site Twitter to vent his anger and said: “Big screen shows blatant hand ball 5 times, ref goes to 3 officials all said goal – none looked at the big screen.”
Gameiro opened the scoring within five minutes when he kept his cool to tuck away Ali Abbas’ pinpoint pass.
In another blow for the Hammers, defender Guy Demel had to limp out of the action following a hamstring problem and was replaced by summer signing Aaron Cresswell, previously of Championship side Ipswich Town.
With 25 minutes on the clock Sydney doubled their advantage courtesy of an Alex Brosque strike.
He smashed the ball home after good work from Berni Ibini in the midfield engine room.
Sam Allardyce’s men hauled themselves back into the contest five minutes into the second period when winger Matt Jarvis cut inside and unleashed a fine strike from the edge of the penalty area which deflected in off Nikola Petkovic.
However, the controversial goal after 63 minutes proved to be the winner.