The FIFA World Cup 2022 final has created a lot of controversy in terms of decisions made by the match officials. So much that, even after a week has gone by, L’Equipe fans are still budging on the call made by the VAR on Lionel Messi’s third goal which saw Argentina taking the lead in the 108th minute on the final. The argument was that, before the ball crossed the line, two Argentina substitutes warming up on the side of the pitch stepped onto the field, which breached FIFA’s law of how many players of a team should be on the field during the active time of play.
VAR referee Tomasz Kwiatkowski, despite all the criticism, believes his VAR team made the right call. The International Football Association Board (IFAB), which makes the rules, also backed the Polis VAR referee up by stating to The Athletic that the rule would only apply if the players intervened with play, which was not the case for Messi’s goal because the two substitutes were far from where the action took place.
Officials taking the critics on-
“I had three penalties which were very well dictated by [referee] Szymon Marciniak. I had two situations with a potential red card and a super-difficult dive of Marcus Thuram, and remember that sometimes a dive is in the balance with a penalty.” the VAR official said.
He then got back to the critics stating that “When you’re sitting in a warm chair, drinking a beer and eating crisps, everything seems simple,”
It is natural that controversy will rise on crucial decisions that were made on such grandest of all stages, but all criticism were well tackled by the officials and the authority with proper logic. It is safe to say, calls that were made by the officials during the final were spot on and they definitely deserve the praise for being such sharp on their judgement in such crucial moments.
