The Egyptian Football Association said on Wednesday it could not remain silent after what it called a failure to make proper use of VAR in Egypt's 3-2 last-16 loss to Argentina, a defeat that erased a 2-0 lead with 11 minutes left in Atlanta. The complaint turned a turbulent World Cup exit into a direct challenge to how the match was handled.
Egypt's head coach Hossam Hassan said his side were wrongly denied a second goal when they were leading 1-0 after a VAR check, and said they should also have been awarded a stoppage-time penalty moments before Enzo Fernandez scored Argentina's third. He went further, saying he would never watch the World Cup again because there is no justice in the competition, and questioned referee Francois Letexier over the calls that shaped the night.
The Egyptian Football Association said the game raised serious concerns and left profound questions about the consistency and fairness of decisions that directly influenced the course of the match. It also said football experts and specialist analysts, locally and internationally, had pointed to controversial and influential officiating incidents during the contest, a statement that gave formal shape to the anger that followed Argentina's late comeback in Atlanta.
That anger found support in a separate refereeing analysis, where Graham Scott said the decision to disallow Egypt's goal was incorrect and that the challenge on Lisandro Martinez in the build-up to Ziko's 67th-minute effort was normal contact, not a foul. That does not change the result, but it does explain why Egypt believes the VAR process failed at a crucial point and why the dispute has moved beyond disappointment into a wider argument over fairness in the FIFA World Cup 2026 pathway.
Argentina now moves on to a quarter-final against Switzerland on Saturday, while Egypt is left with a formal protest, a furious coach and one unanswered issue that will linger long after the final whistle: whether the technology meant to correct mistakes instead helped decide the game.
