Controversy reigned in the World Cup match between Japan and Spain on Thursday night, with ITV pundit Graeme Souness suggesting "something untoward is going on" following the Japanese winner.
It proved vital, with the goal consigning group rivals Germany to elimination despite their win over Costa Rica in the other match in Group E.
Spain went ahead early on against Japan through Alvaro Morata, while Germany set about hammering Costa Rica, a game the Germans won 4-2, despite a little second-half scare. If Spain won, too, then both them and Germany would have gone through.
Ao Tanaka's winning goal for Japan against Spain in the 51st minute, though, has set the cat amongst the pigeons.
Ritsu Doan had got Japan back level just after the half-time break before the controversial Tanaka winner. The ball was delivered from the right-hand side by the scorer of the first goal, Doan, before Kaoru Mitoma got to it and crossed it back across goal first time. The ball, however, appeared to have crossed the touchline before Mitoma's final cross, which Tanaka tapped home.
The goal underwent a lengthy VAR check but stood as the referees found the ball to not have crossed the touchline.
Souness, in the ITV studio, went on a mini-rant to ask why it was taking so long to clarify.
"Every television studio, every pundit has an interest in this World Cup will be wanting to see the picture where at the end where this happened," said Souness.
"In real time, as it happened, the ball went out, the pictures we’ve seen shown the ball went out.
"Why aren’t FIFA showing us something which is so controversial that it just cost the Germans dearly. Why are they not showing it to us? This is enormous, 45 minutes later, why aren’t they showing it? Clear it up for us, please."
He continued: " Mark ( Pougatch), 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 they don’t produce 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?"
Gary Neville responded: " Look, I don’t believe in conspiracies. I believe in this tournament, they’ve not demonstrated it. That high cam which is on the line tends to suggest there might be some of the ball over the line but I’m struggling with it. From that very first offside goal, Ecuador vs Qatar, I’ve struggled and found it uncomfortable that we haven’t been shown the angles and correct camera - it doesn’t feel right."
Souness countered: " Why would you, if you’re FIFA, knowing Germany - it’s not a small footballing nation, create confusion about something on that shouldn’t be going on… I’m going to have to tread careful. Why would you not want to clear it up immediately?"
Referee Peter Walton, in the studio to offer an official's insight, attempted to clear the matter up. He said: "I’m seeing the same angles as you, there’s a misconception in law that just because the part of the ball that is on the floor is over the line is out - well it clearly isn’t because it’s the curve of the ball.
"We see it often with corner kicks where it’s over the line but not quite over the line. In this instance, what the VAR is looking for is the evidence to suggest to the referee that the ball has clearly left the field of play and on the evidence that we’re seeing, he doesn’t have that in front of him.
"What I would suggest is the goal line technology, those cameras are being used for VAR to discover whether it has left the field of play so there are angles that will show that. If, however, a player’s boot or a player’s shin has gone over the top of the ball can’t see it clearly then the VAR will say to the referee: ‘I don’t have that evidence to give you, Mr Referee, stay with your on-field decision’.
"We’ll see what pictures FIFA show us but the law is specific, the ball is still in play if the curvature of the ball breaks that line - do we have that evidence to show?"
On why FIFA had not shown the images, Walton added: "Well that is very peculiar because at the start of this tournament for offside decisions 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 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."
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