According to FIFA, the “available evidence” shows that Japan’s disputed winning goal against Spain in Thursday’s World Cup play should have stood.
Ao Tanaka‘s second-half goal seemed to cross the dead ball line before being sent into the six-yard box by Kaoru Mitoma for Tanaka to nudge in from close range, but the goal was upheld after lengthy discussion with VAR.
Subsequent television replays were equivocal, with some implying that the ball remained within the field of play and others claiming that it did not.
According to the rules of football, the entire ball must cross the line in order for it to be deemed out of play.
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The score turned out to be quite important. Spain finished as runner-up in Group E, overtaking Japan in the end, and Germany was eliminated in the group stages for the second straight World Cup.
The margin was so close that a well-known UK analyst demanded FIFA provide the information used by the VAR officials to make the decision. On Friday, FIFA posted two tweets to its official account in an effort to clarify the decision-making procedure.
“Japan’s second goal in their 2-1 win over Spain was checked by VAR to determine if the ball had gone out of play,” FIFA wrote.
“The video match officials used the goal line camera images to check if the ball was still partially on the line or not.”
“Other cameras may present misleading images, but on the evidence available, the whole of the ball was not out of play,” FIFA continued in a subsequent tweet.
In the second article, FIFA argued that, depending on the angle from which it was viewed, the ball may have appeared in play or out of play. A reenactment of the action revealed that a portion of the ball was hanging over the goal line.
“If it was really out it would have been a goal kick, but the judgement of the referee was it was in,” Japan coach Hajime Moriyasu said afterwards.
“We respected it, but we were willing to respect either way. The final judgement was it was in.”
