France’s appeal for losing to Tunisia in the FIFA World Cup has been denied. After losing their final group stage match to Tunisia, 1-0, on a goal by Wahbi Khazri, they appealed the result.
However, the game’s controversial ending was caused by substitute Antoine Griezmann, who thought he had scored an equalizer in the 99th minute.
The referee gave Tunisia another chance to take the kickoff after a lengthy delay. Still, this time the goal was disallowed due to offside, thanks to the assistance of video assistant referees.
That infuriated the French, so they appealed, arguing that the game officials broke VAR protocol by ruling against them after a goal had been disallowed and play had restarted with a kickoff.
French football officials requested that the outcome be modified to a 1-1 tie, but FIFA denied their request.
It is not yet clear whether or not FIFA will release a statement explaining its reasoning behind the rejection of France’s appeal.
“The FIFA Disciplinary Committee has dismissed the protest submitted by the French Football Association in relation to the Tunisia v. France FIFA World Cup match played on 30 November,” a short FIFA statement read.
Even though the event generated a lot of debate, nothing fundamentally changed within the group due to it. Despite this, France was declared the champion of their group, whereas Tunisia was disqualified from the competition at Qatar 2022.
The outcome had little bearing on either Australia or Denmark since Australia finished in second place, and Denmark advanced to the round of 16. On Saturday night, Argentina defeated them by a score of 2-1.
