Mo Salah escapes FA punishment for penalty ‘dive’ against Newcastle

The Egyptian is free to face Arsenal and Manchester City

Mo Salah has avoided retrospective action by the FA after he was awarded a 47th-minute penalty when he contentiously went to ground after a challenge from Newcastle's Paul Dummett during Liverpool's 4-0 win on Boxing day. The Liverpool forward is now cleared to play in the Red's crunch games against Arsenal and Manchester City in the coming days. Although Dummet did pull Salah's arm, footage of the incident showed the Egyptian overreacted to the challenge. However, as contact was made, the FA has ruled it did not meet the required threshold for "attempting to deceive the referee". The incident occurred at the beginning of the second-half after a Dejan Lovren half-volley put the team 1-0 up in the 11th minute. Mo Salah went on to convert the spot kick before Xherdan Shaqiri (79) and Fabinho (85) put the result out of reach of the Tynesiders. Following the game Newcastle manager Rafael Benitez labelled the penalty award "soft", saying it had happened at a "crucial" moment of play. He told Sky Sports: "The soft penalty in the game made the difference, we were in the game 1-0 at half-time, but when we conceded the second goal it was more difficult for us to react against a very good team. "The second goal was crucial, it gave them more confidence and was more difficult for us, you have to take more risks, be more open then you make more mistakes and pay for that."