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
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@Kojo..I think you are going through some nightmares but the truth must be told. I was only emphasizing on bad officiating that has engulfed Ghanaian matches, especially, World cup qualifying match and it has got nothing to do with Nigerians exit. Forget about Anas bogus entrapment. There was no natural cases record except his own "Kwaku Ananse" and "Ntikuma" trick to create by force bribe
To the first person that replied calling him or herself A Concerned Citizen ... Ghana have made great impact,the Ref. in the qualifying series was not fair to Ghana and all sort, now it is Nigeria that is complaining of the Ref. in the WORLD CUP tomorrow it will be Ghana, in Ghana we are so ***barred word*** that we cannot even support our own,if it was Ghana playing against Argentina and the same happens we will cry the same just as you are crying against what we got in the qualifying series, maybe we have been qualifying by paying the Ref. before,remember we are still in that ***barred word*** with Anas. Secondly Juliet Ibrahim giving her support to the Super Eagles of Nigeria how does that concern peacefmonline please???, you guys used these words "Now that Nigeria have been kicked out" GOSH!!!!!!!! this spells WICKED ENVY, when Ghana went to South Africa in 2010 all Africa supported the Black Stars BUT we always show how low we are in everything,Juliet lives in Nigeria mostly and does her Business over there so why this bitterness??? ... Peacefmonline your handlers are small minded people .... GOSH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!.
The referee was fair because he balanced the equation by awarding that controversial penalty to Nigeria. The referee was far better than the South African referee who robbed Ghana during the World cup qualifying series. I'm taking this opportunity to appeal to African referees to be fair to Ghana during World cup qualifying series so they can redeem the image of Africa in the World cup. Since time immemorial Ghana has been robbed for far too long. In those days, it was only the North African countries who used to qualify to represent Africa in the World cup but failed to make any great impact. Ghana have been there for three consecutive and have made a great impact. Apparently, proving to the World that one day if everything being equal Ghana can also win the World Cup. if that be the case, why would Africans use 'ways and means' to thwart Ghana's efforts through bad officiating?. Remember Ghana vs Germany, Ghana vs U.S.A, Ghana vs Czechs, Ghana vs Uruguay. This shows that Ghana has the capabilities to win the ultimate. CAF must ponder over this trend and be fair to Ghana during the qualifying series so Ghana can qualify to help Africa move forward in World soccer.
Moses should know that there are rules in every game. As the referee signaled after re-watching, the intention of the player is to head and as the hand is part of the body it hit the hand which he did not disagree but was it intentional, NO. I even think that the one he awarded for Nigeria was wrong if you watch the action well you realized that even the Nigeria player who was fouled did know that that tackle can be a penalty so he was leaving the scene. I supported Nigeria even though I love Argentina but I think they over concentrated so much on Messi which was very bad.