Former Egyptian referee protects the referee in the Egypt-Argentina match

Former FIFA referee Aleksey Nikolayev analyzed the decisions made by referee François Letexier in the Argentina vs. Egypt match during the World Cup quarter-finals, as reported by Zamin.uz.

It is known that representatives of the Egyptian national team were strongly dissatisfied with the refereeing after their 2:3 loss. However, Nikolayev believes that in all controversial situations, the referee team and the video assistant referee system made absolutely correct decisions.

The former referee attributes Egypt’s protests more to emotions. As he emphasized, the team was leading by two goals during the match but ultimately lost the advantage, which intensified the feeling of defeat.

It is natural for the losing side to seek blame in refereeing under such difficult circumstances. Nikolayev stated that Egypt’s disallowed goal was due to an offside, a foul was clearly visible at the start of the attack, and the video replay system did not alert the referee to any clear error.

There is therefore no basis whatsoever to consider the referee’s decision in this situation incorrect. Likewise, the specialist had no doubts about the penalty awarded in favor of Argentina.

According to him, the defender made a reckless movement inside his own penalty area, which was sufficient for the referee to make a decision. In the situation involving Mohamed Salah, the defender initially played the ball, so no penalty should have been awarded.

Nikolayev acknowledged François Letexier as one of the strongest referees in Europe and stated that he fully controlled the intensity of the match. According to One.uz, the former referee considers all claims of bias toward strong teams to be unfounded.

In his view, from a refereeing perspective, all actions were lawful and logical.