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Erling Haaland lambasted the referee of France’s World Cup quarter-final win over Morocco after an incident surrounding Kylian Mbappe’s missed penalty.
Argentine referee Facundo Tello awarded France a penalty in the first half when Noussair Mazraoui clumsily lunged in on Mbappe and brought him down.
Yet there was then an inexplicable VAR delay of more than three minutes, despite the obvious nature of the decision, and Mbappe appeared to get increasingly frustrated at the wait.
When he was eventually permitted to take the spot-kick, the France captain’s attempt was diabolical and Yassine Bounou easily saved the timid effort. However, Les Bleus went on to win the match 2-0, with their skipper making amends with a second-half goal, to become the first team into the semi-finals.
Yassine Bounou saved Kylian Mbappe’s poor penalty (Getty)
Many appeared to have sympathy with Mbappe, including Norway star Haaland, who was watching the match ahead of his country’s own quarter-final against England on Saturday evening.
Posting on Snapchat, the prolific striker captioned a picture of his TV screen showing the match with the slightly exaggerated comment: “Need to wait 5 min to take a penalty is way too long.”
Haaland wasn’t the only one to criticise the delay with even the normally unmoved Roy Keane suggesting he had some sympathy for the French talisman.
Erling Haaland criticised the referee’s decision (Getty)
“Over three minutes… I know these are world-class players but it is unfair because it is a pressure situation,” said Keane in his role as pundit on ITV’s coverage of the game.
“Why does he have to wait three minutes? Time is the enemy for a striker when you’re waiting. You’re giving the advantage back to the goalkeeper and the team who’ve conceded the penalty, so it’s not right.”
Fellow ITV pundit Ian Wright agreed with the taciturn Irishman, saying: “It probably does put you off. The longer you have to wait for a penalty the more you doubt what you’re going to do.”
Tello had already been the subject of some controversy just by being appointed to referee the match, forming one-fifth of an all-Argentine officiating team – the first time in the knockout stage of this World Cup that each official had come from the same country.
The appointment of referee Facundo Tello caused some controversy (Getty)
French fans and media hit out at the decision ahead of the match, with Argentina seen as one of Les Bleus’ main rivals for the trophy.
There were also complaints following Argentina’s dramatic 3-2 last-16 victory over Egypt, with Mostafa Ziko, who had a goal chalked off before scoring later in the game, accused the World Cup of being “fixed”.
Meanwhile Egypt have since launched an official complaint to Fifa demanding referee Francois Letexier and his team are kicked out of the tournament.
There are a number of factors that go into Fifa’s referee selection process for World Cup matches, including geopolitical considerations and sporting integrity. For example, due to the 1982 Falklands War, they will not appoint an Argentine to referee an England game, or an English ref to an Argentina match.