You may have read the reports about a petition that was going around France after their national team lost the FIFA World Cup final to Argentina in Qatar. The aim which was to get the final replayed was very well supported, the last figures I saw were over 250,000 signatures.
I have always found the French to be welcoming and generous people, but sadly this makes them sound like being ‘bad losers’.
So what is the basis of their complaint? Refereeing errors of course. They claimed that Polish referee Szymon Marciniak had made mistakes that would otherwise have given France the title.
One was that the first penalty against France should not have been given. Looking at the replay, this was awarded for a trip by a French defender in the penalty area.
It is something that happens dozens of times in the course of a season. The French defender’s feet just caught the Argentine player’s ankle.
The contact was minimal but the referee took it as a trip, and as the Laws says: ‘The decisions of the referees regarding facts connected with play, including whether or not a goal is scored and the result of the match, are final’.
The major complaint was very different. It was claimed that Messi’s second goal should have been disallowed, because there were Argentine substitutes on the pitch before the kick was taken.
There is some substance in this. I have a copy of a photo showing two substitutes encroaching on to the pitch.
The first thing to understand is that substitutes, substituted players, sent off players and team officials are all under the jurisdiction of the referee, and should not enter the field of play without the referees permission.
If however, any of them should do so, the referee should not stop the game, unless there is an interference with play. If there is an interference with play , the referee should stop the game and award a direct free kick against the offending team.
There is one other clause that I think would skuttle the French claim. If after a goal is scored, the referee realises before play restarts that an extra person from the goal scoring team was on the pitch, he should disallow the goal.
The photo shows that the referee was a good distance away from the substitutes, as was his concentration, so he was unlikely to have seen them, and anyway, they did not interfere with the play.
