Erling Haaland has avoided a retrospective punishment from the Football Association (FA) despite throwing the ball at Gabriel Magalhaes during Manchester City’s tense 2-2 draw against Arsenal on Sunday.
The incident occurred straight after John Stones’ dramatic 98th-minute equaliser with Haaland picking up the ball and launching it at the back of Gabriel’s head.
The clip went viral on social media, and left Arsenal fans furious, but it has now emerged that Haaland will not face any type of punishment over the incident.
That’s because it was reviewed during the game by VAR official John Brooks – who felt it wasn’t an act of violent conduct – and therefore not worthy of a red card.
The VAR cannot intervene to recommend a yellow card, and with there being no on-field punishment, it means that Haaland has avoided a retrospective ban.
Haaland’s bad behaviour was not limited to that one incident, with the Norway international striker brutally telling Arsenal manager Mikel Arteta to ‘stay humble’.
The 24-year-old was also heard calling Arsenal forward Gabriel Jesus a ‘f*****g clown’ and later said to Gunners star Myles Lewis-Skelly: ‘Who the f**k are you?’
Meanwhile, Haaland’s City team-mate Bernando Silva has blasted Arsenal for their second-half ‘time-wasting’ and has aimed a dig at the Gunners over their lack of trophies.
‘The difference [between Arsenal and Liverpool? I don’t know,’ Silva told TNT Sports. ‘Maybe that Liverpool have already won a Premier League, Arsenal haven’t.
‘Liverpool have won a Champions League, Arsenal haven’t. Liverpool always faced us face-to-face to try to win the games.
‘So by this perspective, the games against Arsenal haven’t been like the ones we had and have against Liverpool. So yes, maybe a different rivalry.
‘There was only one team that came to play football. The other came to play to the limits of what was possible to do and allowed by the referee, unfortunately.
‘The referee allowed a sequence of time-wasting events. The thing that bothers me the most is having a lot of meetings with the FA at the beginning of each season. They tell us they will control this kind of situation and will stop them, but at the end it doesn’t have any worth. They say a lot but nothing happens.’
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