Remix.run Logo
dwedge 6 hours ago

Maybe, but it's been widely reported. BBC wrote about it here: https://www.bbc.com/sport/football/articles/cx2wkwd7e6go

Since that article was published, England had the red card ban for Quansah extended to two games instead of one with no appeal so he couldn't play against Argentina if England were to get that far, and shortly after equalising in the quarter final Switzerland had a red card for a second yellow against Embolo for diving which had originally been given to Argentina. If you don't know, there is no right for VAR to give a yellow card in this case - it can only be done if it's mistaken identity, which is what they claimed. https://www.theguardian.com/football/2026/jul/12/switzerland...

Now of course none of this is evidence of bias, but it's worth noting that this has been happening after claims of pro-Argentina bias has been widespread enough that the BBC and other institutions wrote about it.

notahacker 5 hours ago | parent [-]

It's been widely reported that the coach of a side that lost in unfortunate circumstances to Argentina whinged a lot about the match officials disallowing one of his side's goals. This is normal, as is media reporting on silly conspiracy theories. Since the article the super conspiratorial "all Argentine refeering team" also failed to do any damage to France's prospects against Morocco whatsoever, and the Norwegians have joined the Ghanaians in complaining that England have been getting scandalously bad decisions too!

Nobody with an adult understanding of sport honestly believes that the ban for Quansah is some sort of conspiracy to guarantee Argentina won. I mean, apart from him getting the normal ban for a bad tackle, the only chance he'd get of making the starting lineup against Argentina was as an out-of-position option that would by marginally easier for Argentina to play against.

The "mistaken identity" rule was very clearly changed before the World Cup to allow it to be used to review decisions when the referee mistakenly carded a player or awarded a penalty for something actually caused by his opponent (not just when he booked a different player on the same team). Your assertion is simply false, as your own link confirms. Also, of the few "mistaken identity" decision reversals, Embolo's ridiculous dive to try to [initially] get his opponent into trouble was by far the most obvious and deserving. But yes, losing sides will generally whinge more about rule changes which mean their player can't get away with cheating like he might have done in the past than they will about their player's decision to cheat costing them a game they might have won.

Really, the only major decision involving Argentina that's not completely consistent with other games was Messi avoiding trouble for accidentally studding an opponent's calf (a bit like the much-debated Balogun incident) in a low pressure group stage game, and we don't need a massive conspiracy to understand match officials might be scared to send off the world's most famous player in his last tournament for an inconsequential bit of clumsiness, if they even saw it clearly.