The Egyptian FA wants referee Letexier and VAR to be sent home for ‘serious mistakes’ in the defeat by Messi’s Argentina.
Egypt demanded that the team in charge of the match that was in charge of the match that was expected to be defeated by Argentina yesterday should be sent back home to the World Cup.
The North Africans were furious after a series of controversial calls against them in the Round of 16 tournament in Atlanta.
What they are complaining about is the decision of the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) to disallow Mostafa Zico’s goal for allegedly playing Lisandro Martinez on the other side of the field, Zico completing a counter-attack that Emi Martinez finished well.
And then the VAR didn’t intervene when they felt Mohamed Salah had tripped in the Argentina area just before Enzo Fernandez nodded the winner in injury time.
Egypt manager Hossam Hassan took aim at referee Francois Letexier after the game and the Egyptian FA have now lodged a formal complaint with FIFA.
It read as follows: “Hany Abou Rida, the president of the Egyptian Football Federation, filed a claim with FIFA, demanding an investigation into the French referee Francois Letexier after the bad refereeing mistakes made by the refereeing team and the double standard, which caused the Egyptian team to lose the game and leave the World Cup.”
The statement added that there were “obvious errors as well [that the match officials had] he insisted on not updating some of the photos.
“We want the referees and the entire team to be removed from the World Cup after investigating these mistakes.” It also said there had been a “crime of discrimination against the Egyptian national group”.
Egypt manager Hassan says the World Cup is ‘destined for Argentina’
It is unlikely that Egypt’s complaints will lead to meaningful action, which will further Egypt’s sense of injustice.
Speaking last night, Hassan said “the cup is aimed at Argentina”.
“We have never seen respect or fair play,” he told a press conference. “A penalty was awarded and then the second one [incident] that should have been checked to see if there was a penalty and it wasn’t even checked by VAR. The second goal was surprisingly, for whatever reason, disallowed.
“It seems that there was pressure on the Argentinian side with the referee who brought this result.
“Life is not fair, the world is not fair, that’s right, but why is there no fairness in sports, I am not satisfied with this result and the way things happened in this game.
“The referee is unfair, God is not enough and the best arbitrator. He is wasting the effort of the whole nation. This cup is aimed at Argentina.”
Zico congratulates Argentina on winning another World Cup
Zico seems to agree with his coach’s assessment.
He told Canadian broadcaster TSN: “It wasn’t fair from the referee. It wasn’t very good, that was clear. He wasted all our efforts with his decisions. We were leading 2-0 and there was nothing we could do, it’s all up to God.
“We are very sorry [to the people of Egypt]. I am very sorry. We wanted to make you all happy. It wasn’t in the cards. It was the referee. Congratulations to Argentina for their second trophy.”
