FIFA have finally issued an explanation for the controversial Japan goal which knocked Germany out of the FIFA World Cup in Qatar.
Hansi Flick's side were eliminated from Group E despite their 4-2 win over Costa Rica as Japan came from behind to beat Spain 2-1. Their winning goal was shrouded in controversy, however, after a lengthy check to determine if the ball had gone out of play before being crossed for Ao Tanaka to tap home.
Initial replays appeared to show the ball had crossed the line, but a new angle which emerged after full-time showed the ball was not quite entirely over the line. However, FIFA were slammed for their handling of the incident with the replays studied by VAR not made available during or shortly after the game prompting debate.
However, FIFA have now issued an explanation on their official Twitter feed, writing: "Japan’s second goal in their 2-1 win over Spain was checked by VAR to determine if the ball had gone out of play. The video match officials used the goal line camera images to check if the ball was still partially on the line or not.
"Other cameras may offer misleading images but on the evidence available, the whole of the ball was not out of play."
Despite their explanation, Gary Neville was instantly critical of world football's governing body for the delay in showing their evidence. He replied: "Why don’t you allow access to the real-time angles and footage that VAR officials are looking at to broadcasters?"
Neville's sentiments were shared by Graeme Souness on ITV Sport immediately after the game as he suggested the lack of evidence supplied around the decision left room to believe there was "something untoward".
Souness said: "We’re getting close to an hour since the incident. The longer they don’t come up with a picture, that last bit would show me that ball is out of play.
"The longer we don't see that picture which shows conclusively that it's not gone out of play, you’d think there’s something untoward going on. It has to be.
"There’s 80 million Germans, right now, going mad that shows that ball didn’t go out of play. I think every TV studio, pundit, people doing your job [presenting] is waiting, why, nearly an hour later are they not showing it?"
He added: 'This is not subjective, this is a black and white situation. Show us the pictures."
Former referee Peter Walton said of the lack of replays: "Well that is very peculiar, because at the start of this tournament, for offside decisions it was that those decisions would be shown automatically to the stadium so the people in the stadium could see it, that technology is still available for the people in the stadium.
"I’m at a miss as to why they haven’t showed it yet. They’ve got their reasons and only time will tell. I do think the evidence will appear sooner or later whether that ball hasn’t crossed the line."
