Antoine Griezmann‘s late equaliser during France’s 1-0 loss to Tunisia on Wednesday was disallowed by VAR, and the French Football Association (FFF) is expected to file a complaint with FIFA on these events.
Wahbi Khazri, a forward for Montpellier who was born in France, scored the lone goal that separated the two teams in the final group match, shocking a drastically altered France team.
However, when Griezmann slammed home a close-range goal in the ninth minute of injury time, Didier Deschamps‘ team appeared to have tied the game. However, VAR overturned the goal after determining that a French player was offside throughout the buildup.
The FIFA regulations state that VAR interjections cannot occur after a match has been restarted, which is exactly what happened in the match at the Education City Stadium, thus France is dissatisfied at the decision because it only came after the game had resumed.
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The regulations clearly state: “If play has stopped and restarted, the referee may only undertake a ‘review’, and take the appropriate disciplinary sanction, for mistaken identity or for a potential sending off offence relating to violent conduct, spitting, biting or extremely offensive, insulting and/or abusive action(s).”
The French football authorities said in a later statement that they plan to petition FIFA because they believe it was “in our opinion, wrongly disallowed.”
Given that there are further game rules that state that no action can be taken about a challenged VAR ruling, it appears likely that any request to change the decision will be ignored.
But even if FIFA had the authority to change a France loss to a draw, the final Group D rankings would remain same, with France finishing first and Australia moving on to the knockout rounds as runners-up after their own 1-0 victory against Denmark on Wednesday.
