ViVAR La France – Le Fix Is In : Fifa’s French Favouritism Hands Les Bleus The World Cup

If you can fix a World Cup Final, as disgraced former UEFA President Michel Platini admitted to fixing the France-Brazil World Cup 1998 Final, you can fix a World Cup Final...

“I have been impressed with VAR during this World Cup but in Sunday’s final, on the biggest stage of all, the system completely failed. “

Keith Hackett, former referee and referee’s chief.

The Russia 2018 World Cup will go down in history as one of the most memorable ever – a riot of goals, colour, upsets and unpredictable results at every turn – yet it will also be remembered chiefly as the first major global soccer tournament when VAR reared its technological head for better or worse.

At worst, the possible hijacking of the World’s greatest football trophy by VAR and the controversy over the critical first and second France goals in the World Cup Final against Croatia threatens to leave a lasting dark shadow on what was in the main a tournament about all that is beautiful about the game.

“Neither of France’s two first-half goals should have counted, with the penalty award for the second absolutely staggering. “

Keith Hackett

He is referring to the fact that the first France goal resulted from a free-kick gained by a clear dive by striker Antoine Griezmann in full view of Argentinian referee Nestor Pitana:

France’s first goal and the first goal of the World Cup final resulted from the subsequent Griezmann free-kick, an own goal by Mario Mandzukic.

Calls that Pogba was in an offside position can be corrected with this VAR image:

Yet the original, clearly cheating Griezmann dive leads to a free-kick and a goal that was the start not the end of the controversy.

An excellently-taken Croatian equalizer from Ivan Perisic levelled the match shortly after before one of the most controversial decisions of The 2018 World Cup:

A France corner kick taken by Griezmann hits the hand of Ivan Perisic and while the referee doesn’t see anything untoward - after strong French protests and a VAR review , the referee - former Argetinian actor Nestor Pistana - is called over to review the incident and after he watches it again pitch-side, a penalty is given which Griezmann converts.

It was cruelly fitting that Griezmann should then perform his idiotic computer-game generated 'Fortnite' dance in goal-scoring celebration for Les Bleus’ World Cup victory in Russia was directly engineered by technology.

For the Video-Assisted Referees won France the World Cup Final – and many of the games preceding it – by an external agent pressing the VAR button and game-changing decisions and penalties following whenever the games weren’t going Les Tricolores way from the first game to the last.

VAR intervened in an urgent manner for France that it didn’t for the rest of the 31 sides competing when the mighty France team were struggling to score against the Australian Socceroos side in their opening game before an innocuous incident involving Griezmann and Socceroo Josh Bidon when it seemed the French striker had run the ball out of play:

This was to the bewilderment of watching pundits and journalists as well as hundreds of millions of football fans watching worldwide bearing in mind the remit of VAR is to reverse a “clear and obvious error” ie a decision that the vast majority of watchers sees.

That there was a split between those saying penalty and those saying it wasn’t shows it wasn’t a clear and obvious error, a doubt that the Australia manager Bert van Marwijksaw in the referee and believed it should not have been given:

“I hoped that maybe one time there will be a referee (who is) very honest. When you are in that moment, on your own go to that video screen, I saw him standing there.

“They body language was that he didn’t know, from my position. And then you have to take a decision. France or Australia?

“It’s very difficult but when it’s also difficult to decide, when a referee, for 50,000 people on his back, must decide when he is doubting.”

That VAR-assisted decision kickstarted France’s World Cup in terms of goal-scoring and set a pattern of set-piece goals but the way the referee is forced to analyse an incident pitch-side is a key point that former referee and former Referees Chief Keith Hackett, wishes to see amended in future as its already in the ref’s head that other trained VAR officials with access to video replays think the on-pitch referee may have missed an incident or made a mistake and is therefore more likely to change his original decision.

I wrote about this in a previous Scorum article -

and tweeted about the potential fix being in before the event on Final day and it transpired sadly as I predicted.

Further penalties followed for France against Argentina – contrast the readiness to give Les Bleus penalties to the opposite that the England team faced against Tunisia for instance – and where VAR showed up, teams prospered easier and vice versa.

‘Take The L’ screamed Griezmann’s arrogant gesture when he tapped in yet another wrongly-given penalty – Didier Deschamps’ team were awarded the most in 2018 – perhaps in acknowledgement that the tournament was fixed and his team could not lose.

Post 2018 World Cup – How To Improve VAR

Croatia’s Liverpool defender Dejan Lovren was critical of the VAR in the aftermath of the World Cup Final and rightly felt aggrieved, he said: 

“Of course it needs to improve. Sometimes it is a penalty and sometimes not. I really don't understand.

“Everything is still on the ref. A lot of people say it's not a pen but what can we do now.

“We played beautiful football and when we didn't have the ball we stayed compact. But they had their chances and they scored.

“France have been one of the favourites to win the World Cup and they did it with one tactic.

“But nobody understands the rules. Our guy couldn't possibly react so why did he give it.”

And the same question could be asked why VAR was France’s 12th man all tournament and the answer may date back to disgraced former UEFA boss Michel Platini helping land the World Cup for Russia 2018  amid a culture of corruption in FIFA Headquarters and even admitting fixing the France -Brazil 1998 World Cup Final which France also won.

Keith Hackett recommends getting rid of the pitch-side VAR reviews which places undue pressure on the referee (see above) and instead, have the decisions made and corrected by the team in the VAR control room.

Others have called for the entire VAR process to be made totally transparent and a transcript from all conversations between Referees and the Video Assistant Referees so that all decisions are explained.

As well as a lack of secrecy and total transparency, expanding VAR’s remit to free-kicks awarded on the edge of the area would improve matters as one of the biggest weapons at The World Cup was diving and winning free kicks on the edge of the area or stopping opponents before they reached the penalty box without VAR punishment.

Diving was also a big feature of the World Cup in Russia exemplified by Griezmann in the Final but also by arch proponents of the Dark Art such as Neymar of Brazil.

In the right hands, VAR although in its infancy, is a potentially excellent and vital tool with the power to make the beautiful game truly fairer yet wilfully and wrongly used by those who would corrupt the game for their own ends, be they political or otherwise, it is a dangerous tool that perverts the very essence of competitive sport.

Hopefully by Qatar 2022, we'll see a less corrupt and more transparent game although in the modern 'sporting' climate, its highly unlikely unless something drastically changes.

ViVAR La French ReVARlution...