Victor Moses has accused referee Cuneyt Cakir and VAR of robbing Nigeria of a place in the last 16 at the World Cup.
Nigeria lost 2-1 to Argentina on Tuesday as they were eliminated at the group stage by Marcos Rojo's late winner.
But Moses was left furious after Gernot Rohr's side didn’t get a second penalty when Rojo headed the ball against his own arm in the area.
The game was tied 1-1 at the time, but after Cakir reviewed the incident as part of the VAR process, the Turkish match official decided not to award the spot-kick.
Captain Mikel John Obi appeared to suggest afterwards that Cakir didn’t give it because Argentina are one of the more fancied teams in the competition and Moses was in agreement.
When asked by Standard Sport if he felt Nigeria missed out because they’re not as big a team as Argentina, he replied: ''Yes. Obviously It was (Lionel) Messi’s day! If you look at it again, we all thought it was a penalty.
''He (Cakir) went to have a look at it again just to confirm it and he came back saying it was not a penalty. But if you look at the replay, it was totally a penalty.
''To have VAR you have to get decisions right and if you’re not getting things right, there is no point having it. Then there is also the playing and stopping the game again for two or three minutes, it’s just got to be right.
''It was definitely a penalty. I think the same decision was given in the Iran vs Portugal game. It was totally the same situation. The referee should have given it.''
Mikel was seen remonstrating with Cakir on the pitch soon after the decision not to penalise Rojo and following the match, he also questioned how VAR is being used.
The former Chelsea midfielder said: ''For big countries it goes their way, small countries? I don’t want to comment about it. You can come to your own opinion yourself - that’s all I can say about it.
''I think the most obvious one was the second penalty - I don’t understand how that is not a penalty. I asked the referee ‘did it touch the hand?’ and he said ‘yes’.
''I said ‘why don’t you give the penalty?’ and he said he ‘doesn’t know’. I’m like ‘You don’t know? But you’re the referee, you need to give the penalty’.
''This is a game we should win, we could have scored another penalty, but this is what happens with VAR.''
Argentina took the lead through Messi, but struggled after Moses equalised from the spot in the 51st minute.
The Chelsea right-wing-back does not think Argentina are good enough to win the competition.
France are their next opponents and Moses said: ''They’re a good team but it’s not like they beat us 4-0 or 5-0. They will find it hard. It is not going to be easy who they play next. They’re (France) going to be strong.''
Source: Ghanasoccernet.com
| Disclaimer: Opinions expressed here are those of the writers and do not reflect those of Peacefmonline.com. Peacefmonline.com accepts no responsibility legal or otherwise for their accuracy of content. Please report any inappropriate content to us, and we will evaluate it as a matter of priority. |
