Following England’s victory over Mexico, Thomas Tuchel voiced his dissatisfaction with the standard of officiating at the World Cup, labelling it inconsistent, unpredictable and below the required level. His remarks felt to me like a form of psychological tactics – overall the officials have been acceptable, getting several calls right, though there have also been moments when they have fallen short. Like everyone, referees cannot be flawless.
Egypt felt they suffered a miscarriage of justice during Tuesday’s contest with Argentina, yet the calls to disallow their goal and allow the Argentina winner were both correct. In the first incident, Marwan Attia fouled Lisandro Martínez during the attacking phase of play – pulling his shirt and planting studs on Martínez’s right foot – and there is no time limit or limit on the number of passes considered. A crucial factor was that the ball travelled continuously forward, with no sideways or backward passes, until it crossed the goal line. It might have been one of the strikes of the tournament, but the straightforward truth is that ruling it out was the right decision.
Regarding Argentina’s decisive third goal, Egypt argued that Julián Alvarez had fouled Mohamed Salah. People are drawing parallels with the earlier incident because both feature boot-on-boot contact, but the circumstances are notably different. Alvarez reaches the ball first, and the minimal contact that follows does not meet the bar for a foul or a video assistant referee review.
The video assistant referee did make a significant intervention in the Mexico-England fixture – Jarell Quansah’s challenge on Jesús Gallardo was a straight-red offence and I was taken aback that the on-field official, Alireza Faghani, did not spot it. After the VAR rightly advised an on-field review, the correct outcome was reached.
Tuchel was unhappy with a string of calls that night. It was always going to be a demanding evening for the referee, given the build-up, the weather and the setting at the Azteca Stadium. However, some of the players did not help matters by taking very little responsibility. They were simulating injury, displaying dissent and contesting virtually every decision – and when the Quansah tackle took place, the entire Mexico bench spilled out in fury. England responded, and things became chaotic.
Learning that England are weighing up an appeal against Quansah’s red card is unexpected, but the Folarin Balogun situation has shifted the landscape entirely. Traditionally there has been no pathway to appeal a red card at a tournament, with an automatic one-match suspension applied. I had never come across Article 27 of the Fifa disciplinary code, which Fifa states it used to suspend the sanction for the USA forward.
Balogun’s dismissal was certainly justifiable with the help of the video match official. Watching his tackle on Tarik Muharemovic of Bosnia and Herzegovina in real time, I was not certain it amounted to a sending-off, but on replay it was a red card for me, even without malicious intent. The tell-tale sign was the position of the ball, because it was not within a reachable distance.
When judging a potential red-card challenge, two essential aspects to weigh up are excessive force and endangering an opponent’s safety. With Balogun’s tackle, the contact point was on the calf, then it travelled down towards the Achilles and caused the ankle to roll. That could easily have resulted in a serious injury.
The interventions from Donald Trump and the remarks from Tuchel mean there is increased noise surrounding refereeing. As an official, you have to shut that out, and at the elite level there are sports psychologists to help. I was never the best at moving on from a poor decision – it would linger in my thoughts for three to four days – but that is not the same as letting it affect your performance. You have to remain level-headed and concentrate on the present moment.
There have been 13 red cards at this World Cup so far, after four in each of the previous two editions, but I do not think there can be too many objections. Player safety is the absolute priority, and the Quansah and Balogun cases are a solid example of where to set the boundary. VAR has been applied correctly for red-card offences that were overlooked on the field.
That is by no means to suggest that VAR interventions have been without fault – far from it. Vinícius Júnior’s disallowed goal for Brazil against Scotland, for instance, was a situation where I felt the on-field decision to award the goal was correct. It was the most minimal of contacts, and not every touch is a foul, because physical contact is a normal feature of football. This was not a clear and obvious error by the referee.
In those instances, a “check complete” is appropriate and you should not look to re-referee the incident. I thought Harry Kane should have been awarded a penalty against the Democratic Republic of the Congo because contact was made on the England captain by the goalkeeper, Lionel Mpasi. Yet, because it did not qualify as a clear and obvious error, I also believed the video assistant was right to stay with the on-field call.
A situation where VAR was right to step in on a penalty call was when France were given a spot-kick after Désiré Doué was fouled by Paraguay’s Diego Gómez. I was surprised that the referee, Ilgiz Tantashev, did not give that one straightaway on the pitch.
That match was another tough evening, but the referee needed to be a great deal more assertive throughout. I was stunned that no Paraguay players received a caution. Referees set out to manage a game, but sometimes you have to set a marker and issue cards. There were a handful of moments when Tantashev should have pulled out a yellow card, and because he failed to do so, Paraguay grew in belief. At one stage his grip on the contest was put in jeopardy.
Fifa has clearly refined its approach to VAR and adopted a high threshold for intervention, just as we observe in the Premier League. It has been intriguing to see contrasting officiating styles from different countries and confederations. But certain fouls are fouls all over the globe, and it genuinely surprised me when Leroy Sané’s goal for Germany against Ecuador stood despite his teammate Aleksandar Pavlovic having kicked Pedro Vite in the head. When a goal is scored, the attacking phase that produces it is automatically checked by VAR, and to my mind that was a foul.
Pavlovic’s boot was higher than the one Declan Rice was booked for earlier in the Mexico game. I can only imagine that both the video assistant and the referee viewed it as a finely balanced call; that Vite put his head down and Pavlovic raised his boot – and that therefore it did not reach the intervention threshold.
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