Abel defends Allan contact as non-penalty, blames referee inconsistency

Abel Ferreira sat down to explain himself after Palmeiras beat São Paulo 3-2 in a bruising derby at the Morumbis on Sunday. The match had left a mark—not just on the scoreline, but on the referee's notebook. There was a moment in the second half when Allan, the Palmeiras midfielder, had slipped on the grass and made contact with Tapia, São Paulo's attacker. The crowd wanted a penalty. The referee, Ramon Abatti Abel, did not give one. Ferreira wanted everyone to understand why that decision was correct.

The Palmeiras coach's argument was precise: yes, Allan had slipped, and yes, Allan had touched the São Paulo player. But the ball was nowhere near them when it happened. This was the crucial detail. If the ball had been in active dispute—if Tapia had actually been competing for it—then Ferreira would have accepted a penalty call, even if the contact was unintentional. But that was not what occurred. Allan's slip was an accident, a moment of lost footing that sent him into an opponent who was not even in the play. "The ball is far away, not being disputed in that moment," Ferreira said. "Therefore, it was unintentional. Allan did not deliberately slide to hit the player."

But Ferreira did not stop there. He pivoted to another grievance: Bobadilla, São Paulo's midfielder, should have been sent off with a second yellow card. The Palmeiras coach had watched Veiga receive a yellow in the first half for what seemed like a routine foul. Then, later, Allan had grabbed Bobadilla—a clear second offense—yet the referee had not shown the card. This inconsistency bothered Ferreira more than the penalty decision itself. He had complained to the referee in the moment, and the official had told him it was not his concern. Ferreira accepted that boundary. But he wanted it noted: if Bobadilla had been expelled, the match might have unfolded entirely differently.

Not everyone agreed with Ferreira's reading of the penalty incident. Carlos Eugênio Simon, ESPN's arbitration analyst, believed the referee had made an error. In Simon's view, the contact was sufficient to warrant a penalty, regardless of whether the ball was in immediate dispute. This disagreement—between the coach on the sideline and the analyst in the booth—reflected a deeper tension in Brazilian football: what exactly constitutes a foul, and who gets to decide?

Ferreira used the moment to broaden his critique. He has written about refereeing before, and he returned to those themes now. The problem, in his view, was structural. Brazilian referees needed independence—they should not answer to the same federation that governed the clubs. They needed better pay; higher salaries would attract better officials and signal that the role mattered. They needed professionalization and rigorous training. "These things will not happen overnight," Ferreira said, but they were necessary. The inconsistencies that plagued matches like this one—the yellow card for Veiga, the non-call on Bobadilla, the debate over Allan and Tapia—these were symptoms of a system that had not invested properly in its arbiters.

Palmeiras had won the match, so Ferreira's complaints carried a certain grace. He was not a losing coach making excuses. He was a winner pointing out that even in victory, the game's foundation—fair and consistent refereeing—remained shaky. The derby would be remembered for the goals and the drama, but Ferreira wanted it remembered also for what it revealed about the state of Brazilian football's officiating. The next matches would come quickly, and the same referees would be back on the field, making the same kinds of judgment calls. Until the system changed, Ferreira seemed to be saying, these arguments would keep happening.