Fifa rebuffs Maradona comments
Legend claims ref favoured England
Nizhniy Novgorod – Last weekend, Didier Deschamps chalked up another significant achievement in a remarkable career.
He became the longest-serving coach of France when he oversaw his 80th game as Les Bleus beat Argentina 4-3 in a thriller to go through to today’s World Cup quarterfinal against Uruguay.
Six years have passed since he replaced Laurent Blanc, but how long he carries on could come down to what happens today. The French Football Federation (FFF) set a semifinal place as their target coming to Russia, and a lasteight exit would leave a sense of potential unfulfilled.
The FFF have said the coach, who turns 50 this year, will stay around until 2020, when his contract expires. Nevertheless, a disappointing exit and his position will look rather fragile at a time when Zinedine Zidane is a free man, having left Real Madrid. Moscow – Fifa says it “strongly rebukes” Argentina great Diego Maradona’s comments that England’s win over Colombia was a robbery and that referee Mark Geiger was not up to the task.
“Following comments made by Diego Armando Maradona... Fifa strongly rebukes the criticism of the performance of the match officials, which it considers to have been positive in a tough and highly emotional match,” said the global soccer body in a statement.
“It also considers the additional comments and insinuations made as being entirely inappropriate and completely unfounded.”
England won the round of 16 match on penalties following 120 minutes marred by squabbling, protests to the referee, play-acting and feigning injury.
Maradona said England’s win was a “monumental robbery” and that Geiger “shouldn’t be given a match of this magnitude”. He added: “Geiger, an American, what a coincidence.”
Fifa said it was doing everything in its power to ensure principles of fair play. –