It only took four minutes for on-field action to cause controversy at Qatar 2022 after Ecuador's opening goal was disallowed by VAR.
Former West Ham striker Enner Valencia appeared to have put the South American side ahead with a header following a free kick only for Daniele Orsato to be told that there was an offside in the build-up.
Initial pictures seemed fairly inconclusive but VAR ruled that there had been an offside, though there was more confusion over which player and which phase of play the offside had occured in. Further images shown later confirmed that Valencia himself had been offside at the initial cross.
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Valencia would go on to get his goal, scoring from the spot less than 15 minutes later, but the hectic start to the game was in-keeping with the rest of the build-up.
Fans were quick to jump to conclusions of their own after the incident though. Here's how social media reacted:
@DannyAaronsFUT: Fair play for not even hiding the corruption, there’s a part of me that actually respects it
@Baddiel: Well. One can only suspect that large amounts of Qatari money have also been funnelled into the VAR studio.
@markgoldbridge: OMG....Tournament in question already.....No way is that ever a VAR review
@CountBinface: BREAKING: VAR rules that Qatar have won the World Cup.
@archiemh17: Fifa president decision overrules VAR
@haveigotnews: Qatar’s multimillion pound investment into new VAR technology paying off.
@lauriewhitwell: Genuinely stunning there has been a VAR overrule in favour of Qatar inside 10 minutes. We got one replay on stadium press screen, no lines. Seemed very dubious live.
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