The World Cup scandal in Qatar: not even the VAR saw that the ball had gone out in Japan’s second goal

It was five minutes into the second half. Ritsu Doan had already converted the partial draw against Spain. But Japan wanted more, aware of the passage to the round of 16 Qatar World Cup 2022. It was then that an error by South African referee Victor Gomes gave them a 2-1 lead.

Opener Doan saw Kaoru Mitoma break free at the far post and the ball went all the way. The Japanese 9 reached out and sent the center che Ao Tanaka pushed for 2-1.

However, something that had been noticed with the naked eye was not perceived by either the South African referee or the VAR: the ball had left the field in its entirety before the snap.

Tanaka came out in desperation to shout 2 to 1 but Gomes put the game on hold, when he waited for help from the VAR. After a few moments that seemed like an eternity, he conceded the goal to the Japanese.

Just ten minutes later, the official broadcast showed frame by frame and zoomed in on how the ball had completely crossed the goal line. But faced with this image, FIFA could argue that a few millimeters of the ball’s circumference was above the lime mark, so the goal was correctly validated.

Though the ball has a chip that allows to determine whether or not the ball enters the goal, this technological tool is not sufficient to determine if the ball goes out of bounds of the playing field because the sensor is in the goal.

Nor would semi-automatic VAR be needed, given that this new FIFA tool only uses player positions to determine if someone is offside, as happened in the Argentina national team’s debut against Saudi Arabia.