CAIRO, July 10 (Alliance News): The Egyptian Football Association has lodged a formal complaint with FIFA, calling for an investigation into the officiating team following Egypt’s 3-2 defeat to Argentina in the FIFA World Cup Round of 16.
In a statement, the federation said its president, Hany Aburida, requested FIFA to investigate French referee Francois Letexier and the entire match officiating team, including the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) officials, over what it described as serious refereeing errors and inconsistent decisions.
The complaint follows Tuesday’s match in which a goal scored by Mostafa Ziko while Egypt were leading 1-0 was disallowed after a VAR review for an earlier foul in the build-up.
Egypt also claimed they should have been awarded a penalty in the closing stages of the match after an alleged foul on Hamdy Fathy before Enzo Fernandez scored Argentina’s winning goal.
The Egyptian federation said it had asked FIFA to review the decisions and called for the removal of the entire officiating team from the remainder of the tournament if the investigation confirms the alleged mistakes.
Following the match, Egypt coach Hossam Hassan strongly criticised the refereeing, claiming his team had been treated unfairly and questioning several key decisions during the game.
Argentina came from two goals down to defeat Egypt 3-2 and advance to the World Cup quarter-finals.
