IT COULD BE WRESTLING. IT COULD BE RUGBY. BUT IT CERTAINLY WASN’T FOOTBALL!
How did the referee — or VAR — fail to award England two blatant penalties for offences that looked more like wrestling moves than legitimate football challenges? Thankfully England were good enough to overcome the ineffective officiating from Colombian referee wilmar Roldan — and a mysteriously absent VAR — to win their opener. one of the things FIFA said they would try to stop at this world Cup was defenders ignoring the ball at set-pieces to hold or block opponents. Roldan kept warning the Tunisians before the ball was played into the area but twice failed to award England penalties when Harry Kane was blatantly hauled to the ground. The offences were so clear that I was surprised, and disappointed, that the Brazilian referee Sandro Ricci in the VAR studio in Moscow didn’t get involved. That’s why he is there. Ricci’s failure to do so was even more surprsing given he had awarded a penalty as the on-field referee in the Croatia-Nigeria match on Saturday night for the exact same offence. Incredibly, Tunisia got through the game without a single yellow card despite some cynical fouling. Fortunately the result wasn’t affected but Pierluigi Collina, FIFA’s referee chief, must be talking to the referee and the VAR operatives to ensure foul play in the penalty area is punished in future. Roldan didn’t hesitate to point to the spot when a poorly positioned Kyle walker inexplicably threw his arm up and blocked Fakhreddine Ben Youssef. It was a penalty, albeit a soft one, which was made all the harder to accept when England were denied two much more obvious penalties.