If you make contact and don't get the ball, it's a foul. And it isn't a contact sport, with the exception of shoulder charges.
Eh? Since when? Where does it say that in the laws of the game? If it isn't a contact sport then every tackle, and every aerial challenge, every shielding of the ball would be a foul.
Shielding the ball is legal. Swinging a leg and missing the ball, and kicking a player, isn't.
It was a penalty.
Ah so it is a contact sport after all? e didn;t swing a leg and he barely touched him. Abraham could have stayed on his feet and played the ball, he chose to go down. Many refs fall for it, some don't. But it's not in the laws of the game as far as I am aware that mere contact equals a foul. It's thinking like yours that is ruining the game. It leads to players going down at the merest touch and worse all this "initiating contact" by forwards before they throw themselves to the ground. Like that Swansea "penalty" against Whelan in the Cup. Sure there was contact but only because the Swansea forward threw himself into Whelan's path. It's bollocks
