Keith Hackett, a former head of the PGMOL, has shut down the notion that the referees favoured Argentina in their game against Egypt.
Argentina’s 3-2 win over Egypt has been marred in controversy due to the calls made by the referees during the game.
This officiating has led many to insinuate that the FIFA World Cup has been ‘rigged’ for Argentina to win. However, one former referee is not having any of it.
Ex-PGMOL chief says there has been no ‘fixing’ in the FIFA World Cup
Speaking to Football Insider, Keith Hackett, a former chief of the PGMOL (Professional Game Match Officials Limited), explained why suggestions of rigging are ludicrous.
He noted that referees are all bound to interpret incidents very differently, and that there are several mechanisms at play to ensure this type of thing doesn’t happen.
“One area that I would dispute very strongly is the claims that games are being fixed at World Cup level or any level of the game. There are sufficient checks and balances in place and a filtering system to ensure this does not happen.
“The laws of the game are subjective. I can get 100 referees in a room, looking at a potential incident and not getting 100 referees to agree with the outcome. That’s the game of football. Those are the laws of the game.
“I have no doubt. Collina, like myself, when I was the boss of the PGMOL, worked hard in training and educating referees to achieve a degree of consistency in the application of the law.”
Keith Hackett questions inconsistency in Argentina vs. Egypt decisions
While Hackett did dismiss the claims of match fixing, he did say that the officiating during the Argentina vs. Egypt game was far too inconsistent for his liking.
“The comments I’ve made about the Martinez incident – as a referee, I wouldn’t want a goal of that quality ruled out. I wouldn’t want VAR to come in. But once VAR has gone through that forensic check, we see a really good goal ruled out.
“In the same way, we have the alleged foul on Salah. I’ve given my view. But where the inconsistency comes in is why didn’t VAR in checking that, which it is allowed to do because a goal has been scored, to check that phase of play, why didn’t he bring the referee to the screen to make a decision?
“When referees go to the screen, I want them to stick with what they believe to be correct, not be influenced by VAR. No corruption for me, no fix for me. It’s not even on my radar.
“But as a former boss of the PGMOL, I can tell you that we put a lot of systems in place to ensure the integrity of our group of referees and ensure that they were aiming all the time for consistency.”
There is room for criticism of the officiating in the Round of 16 tie, as Egypt were undoubtedly hard done by the referees.
However, to suggest that the poor officiating was part of a grander scheme behind the scenes to ensure Lionel Messi and Argentina win the World Cup is nothing more than a conspiracy theory, at least as of now.
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