FIFA refereeing chief Pierluigi Collina defended the officiating in Argentina’s 3-2 victory over Egypt in the World Cup round of 16, dismissing allegations of bias and saying match officials \u200boperated with complete independence.<\/p>\n
In an interview published on inside.fifa.com<\/em> on Thursday, Collina said \u200ccriticism of referees was part of football but he condemned the questioning of the officials’ integrity after Egypt complained about the officiating following the defeat.<\/p>\n “Constructive discussion about decisions will always be part of football, but unfounded allegations have \u200bno place in our sport,” Collina said.<\/p>\n “Nobody can question the integrity of the FIFA World \u200bCup match officials. Nobody can claim that FIFA refereeing can be influenced by \u2060anyone, not even by the FIFA president (Gianni Infantino).” Coach Hossam Hassan alleged after the match there may have been pressure on the referee to keep Argentina in the tournament. And the Egyptian Football Association said “several \u200bkey incidents raised serious concerns and left profound questions about the consistency and fairness of decisions \u200bthat directly influenced the course of the game.”<\/p>\n Egypt argued that Mostafa Zico’s second-half strike was incorrectly ruled out for \u200cwhat \u2060it described as a non-existent foul in the build-up. Egypt were also incensed that a challenge on Mohamed Salah was not penalised moments before Argentina launched the move that produced the winning goal. “We believe that a foul is a foul,” Collina said. “Regardless of whether the foul appears ‘obvious’, if the referee did not see it on the field \u200bof play, the VAR can intervene.” While acknowledging that some decisions would always involve an element of subjectivity, Collina said FIFA was satisfied \u200bwith how VAR principles had been applied throughout the tournament.<\/p>\n \u2014Reuters\u2014<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":39154,"template":"","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"_links_to":"","_links_to_target":""},"news-type":[44,20],"class_list":["post-39206","news","type-news","status-publish","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","news-type-finance","news-type-sport","entry"],"acf":{"short_description":"Morocco plans to invest $10 billion to expand \u200cits \u2060intercity and urban rail networks.","published_date":"","news_description":"Morocco plans to invest $10 billion to expand \u200cits \u2060intercity and urban rail networks.","form_embed":"","author":"","image_caption":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/39206","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/news"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/39206\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":39207,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news\/39206\/revisions\/39207"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/39154"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=39206"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"news-type","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.channelafrica.co.za\/channelafrica\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/news-type?post=39206"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
\nCollina said that such allegations could provoke threats against \u200breferees and their families
\nEgypt exited the tournament but claimed they had been treated unfairly after Argentina overturned a \u200b2-0 deficit to snatch victory with a stoppage-time winner from Enzo Fernandez.<\/p>\n
\nFIFA’s Collina said VAR had correctly recommended overturning Zico’s goal after identifying a foul by Marwan Attia on \u200bArgentina defender Lisandro Martinez \u200bduring the attacking possession \u2060phase.<\/p>\n
\nCollina also defended the decision not to \u200baward Egypt \u2060a penalty before Argentina’s winner, saying both the referee and VAR judged the contact between Salah and Julian Alvarez to be “normal football contact”.
\n“Stepping on an opponent’s foot is a foul, whereas a defender who touches \u2060the \u200bball first and then makes normal football contact has not \u200bcommitted a foul,” he said.<\/p>\n