Graeme Souness And Roy Keane In Heated Argument About Penalties At World Cup
Former Manchester United captain Roy Keane and ex-Liverpool midfielder Graeme Souness were involved in a heated disagreement live on television on Tuesday.
Both men were working on the Argentina vs Saudi Arabia game as part of ITV's punditry team when they clashed during the half-time analysis.
The subject that divided them was the referee's decision to award a penalty to Argentina for an off-the-ball foul by Saud Abdulhamid on Leandro Paredes following a corner kick.
A similar decision had been awarded in Iran's favor against England less than 24 hours earlier.
Presenter Laura Woods introduced a video replay of the Argentina penalty incident and began to explain that FIFA had recently directed referees to clamp down on "blocking and holding" from set-pieces.
Souness interrupted to say: "He's not watching the ball, Laura. He doesn't know where the ball is. He's only interested in the Argentinian player. He doesn't know when it's been kicked, he's not watching and that is a penalty."
Keane disagreed. He felt that Paredes had tricked the referee by diving and pulling the defender down on top of him.
"No, no, no," said Keane. "All this will do is encourage diving. He (Paredes) is dragging him down, he's dragging him down!"
Graeme Souness (left) and Roy Keane pictured arguing live on ITV at half-time during Argentina vs Saudi Arabia
ITV Sport
Souness hit back: "Roy, you're not listening to what Laura has said. It's a directive from referees."
Keane replied: "I heard exactly what she said. It's going to encourage diving."
Souness then said: "This is not about our opinions. That's a fact, the guy wasn't looking at the ball."
An angry Keane responded: "Well I'm here to give my opinion. That is not a penalty."
Souness then reiterated to Keane that this was not a matter of opinion, to which Keane retorted: "Well, what are we here for? I'm here to give my opinion."
Neither man was willing to back down and they continued talking over each other, before Souness told Keane: "Let someone else speak.
"You'll learn a lot more if you listen rather than talk all the time."
With Keane silently fuming, Souness attempted to wrap up by saying: "The ball has come in, he's not looking at the ball. The directive from the referees is that's a penalty. We have to accept that's a penalty.
"We've seen a different Argentina today, it's not the Argentina I expected to see. They've got a pragmatic approach. They don't seem too intent on dominating the ball. I think Saudi have been physical against them and I just feel Argentina have another gear to go into."
But Keane was still stuck on the subject of the penalty. He chimed back in to say: "We're going to see a record number of penalties at this World Cup. A record number. That's not a penalty."
By this point, neither man was giving the other eye contact but Souness still responded by saying: "I thought we'd moved on from that."
Throughout this clash between former midfield generals, ex-England winger Joe Cole had stayed silent.
Woods then asked Cole for his opinion and he said cautiously: "I think it was a penalty."
Keane looked disappointed.
Argentina went on to lose the game 2-1.