Was the referee fair to Iran?

[Leicester City]

Was the referee fair to Iran? (Putting your bias aside of course)

Because I'm seeing mixed reviews online and Portuguese/other fans are saying the referee wasn't fair at all, additionally did not know how to ref a match.

Share why or why not you think the referee was fair.

[Adesor Vafaseya]

To me the referee was NOT intentionally unfair, but not qualified to whistle at WC. This goes both for Egypt game and our game!
Ronaldo? He needs to waste 3 mins on VAR to give him a YELLOW? Even if he touched PAG slightly, rules are rules, must have been red.
And why is he not listening to CQs request to look at VAR for the first penalty moment on Iran that he didn't bother to at least check?

I don't want to get started...!

[rezabmehr]

I think it is FIFA that manipulates the games. Just imagine the loss of revenue if Iran knockedout the mighty Portugal and the mightier Ronaldo. Unfortunately, the world is against us even on the soccer pitch.

[Omids]

Does anyone have the picture of referee speaking to diego costa and hajsafi in totally diferrent ways, one with fingers pointed, the other pleading (to costa)

[Iranianarsenal11]

Being objective and unbiased here, I think the referee was poor, especially in time management.

HOWEVER, he was not specifically unfair to Iran. I think he made up for it by calling the hand ball penalty, especially after he gave Ronaldo such a cheap penalty and didn't call the clear foul on Azmoun in the box

[Kaveh Ahangar]

Definitely not:

- Questionable dive by Ronaldo given as penalty
- Ronaldo should have received RED for violent conduct
- Foul on Azmoun in the box was not given

It seemed to me, that the VAR decisions took an exceptionally long period of time to resolve - for which I suspect the dirty politics and bias of FIFA came into play.
i.e - 'let's keep the world's best player on the pitch, and give him special treatment...lets make sure the Big Teams get through'

Agree 100% with Queiroz that the VAR decisions and referee dialogue should be made open, exactly like it is in Rugby to prevent these kinds of scenarios happening again.

[OzzyOscy]

Surprisingly equal results so far, I was expecting 90% no.

To answer the thread, I think he lost control, and the VAR refs were just as bad. If it was the first group game, they probably wouldn't have got involved as much, but they panicked.

For fairness, well he said no penalty for the handball, and it wasn't a "clear error" yet VAR reviewed it and he gave the penalty that nearly cost Portugal. Of all the decisions, that was the easiest one to give to Portugal or ignore completely. So I can't say he was obviously biased or unfair. He gave them a penalty earlier which means it it WAS rigged then his orders were to get Portugal a second goal and end the game, but instead he gave Iran the chance to win.

[Ghormeh Sabzi]

the guy is straight up moron and should be banned from being a ref. he wasn't fair for both side.

[Sam van Dam]

i knew the ref was going impact the game from the get go. suprisngly he was fair during the first half. i don't know what was said to him during halftime because he lost control of the game, beginning with ronaldos penalty. first, biero should have immediately started the play, not kill time which led to VAR. was it a penalty? there was contact made, similar to the contact made on sardar in the box when he was off the ball. but a PK is awarded, TM players lost their cool, thankfully hajsafi wasn't given a red. biero saved a ronaldo penalty which rarely happens. if that soorakh costa rico goalie can get signed to real madrid after 2014 wc, then theres no reason why biero shouldn't be signed to a european giant.

as mentioned before, the ref lost control of the game. eza and quresma were in a wwe match.... now azmoun was twice taken down and theres was no call, which is fair since it could be human error. but what CQ said is that there are 5 guys in the war room, how can somebody miss that? so we don't get a PK or VAR

then theres a questionable handball which the ref signs for VAR after 3 minutes of heated TM players and CQ pleading for a review which the ref does. he takes a few minutes and awards us a penalty.
we score. but then he blows the whistle around 98 when we had 6 minutes extra time, but he wasted a few minutes with VAR and karmis goal took off another minute. so the ref did blow the whistle a little early. also to say that it wasn't a penalty and a make up call is absurd. if we get that PK and score in minutes 70. that gives us 20 plus minutes to take the lead. 3 minutes isn't enough even though Taremi could have put us through. but we could have had more chances.

now going off the ronaldo controversy its real simple. if its accidental, then the ref needs tell him to settle down. if its intentional then its a straight red. nothing else constitutes a yellow. even the icon on bottom of screen said possible red card review..... like when AJB made contact with patricio in first half, he obviously hit him in the head, but it wasn't intentional, no card given.

so whoever is in charge whether the ref or VAR guys, they all fucked us. FIFA knows its more beneficial to have portugal through with the golden boy. football is the people game and FIFA has taken it away from us. shame shame shame.

amrabat got it right, VAR is bullshit

[Bi-honar]

- Questionable dive by Ronaldo given as penalty

Come on dude, that was a 50/50 and there was clear contact, maybe some refs wouldn't have called it a penalty and in fact this ref did not originally but to call it a "dive" is just taking it way too far.

At the end of the day, that incident and penalty call was God sent to us... we lost our focus in the last few minutes of the 1st half, we didn't start the second half with enough focus and that Beirnavand save could have and should have been one hell of a turning point in the match and a major spring-board for us.

And until that point the refereeing was top notch, absolutely top notch. But we (as a collective, with TM on the field, CQ on the sideline and the fans watching on, at least some of us) have a tendency to dwell in the negative, rather than focus on how positive that moment was and this campaign had been and has been.

So, we got in the ref's face, CQ threw his jacket, the boys lost their focus even more and we were all screaming at our TV's that we are being robbed again. I don't think a single referee in the world or any one of us would have been happy being the referee in that chaotic match from that point on.

It's funny that before the WC, 95%+ of TM fans were content, if not happy with 3 losses as long as we played well. Not a single one of us truly believed that we (as a collective) were capable of getting 4 points in this group - unfortunately, these are the facts.

Now, we are blaming the ref, FIFA, God, yada yada yada for not having reached the round of 16!!! We should blame no one but ourselves for NOT believing in the strengths of this team and for not believing that we were indeed capable of causing a major upset in this WC.

But hopefully we (as a collective) have learnt our lesson. Let this be a lesson that TM is greater than the sum of its parts. Let this be a lesson that WE CAN & WE WILL accomplish great things in the future - but NOT with negativity, conspiracy theories and bad vibes.

It was pretty depressing reading some of the comments on the forum going into this last match. Just go back and read the match thread about how even Iranian fans partying and having a good time was going back to come back and bite us in the ass!!!

In fact, the recurring theme (here and elsewhere) had been that the actions of everything and everyone, from CQ to our players to the referees to FIFA, to IFF to the US to Puma and even including our fans who spent thousands of dollars to go support TM is questionable, works against us, somehow weakens us and will come back to bite us in the ass - the epitome of a self defeatist mentality.

TM had it's greatest World Cup campaign ever in one of its toughest groups ever and nearly knocked out one of the top 5 teams in the tournament and frankly began a very positive and bright future not in football but possibly for Iranian women and Iran in general (fingers crossed).

On that note, the only thing that came back to bite us in the ass was our own negative energy and attitudes and the lack of belief that WE CAN & WE WILL do it - it's called a self-fulfilling prophecy. So, let this be a GREAT lesson for all of us to build a better and brighter future together.

I'm sorry for the rant btw, this post is not intended at you personally but at all of us, as a collective.

[Martin-Reza]

I also think he wasn't unfair. He was just bad. In the end we didn't lose because of VAR or the ref, we lost because we are not yet the team to create enough chances against European top teams and convert them.

[Sam khan]

Ronaldo penalty: I said before the game Ronaldo would do everything to make it look like he should have a penalty or red card against him and that's exactly what happened. I believe on balance most refs would give that as a penalty but you can clearly see he started diving BEFORE the contact and so was clearly looking for it. Was it technically a penalty? Yes probably. Would most refs give it? Well this ref originally didn't. Is Ronaldo a despicable cheat? Yes but we knew that.
The handball penalty for us: It was very harsh. It was slight ball to hand, and that shouldn't really be a penalty but "rules are rules" and in this world cup when you have players running in the box with their HANDS BEHIND THEIR BACKS because they know the rules and know there is VAR, to jump on for a header like that and have your arms stretched out like that is at best incredibly naive and at worst trying to play the system so that people will say "oh look he was jumping, it can't be a penalty". Remember as I warned before the match, this is Portugal, the dirtiest team on the planet. Horrible sneaky cheaters. Bad luck or not, by the letter of the law this was a penalty but I agree it was very very harsh.
Azmoun - I didn't see it enough times but to me it looked almost as much of a claim as Ronaldo's.

Now this is what gets me.... the BBC were CLEARLY very biased. They said Ronaldo's was a definite penalty no questions asked... they said our penalty was definitely not a penalty and a clear messup by the ref... and they didn't even talk about Azmoun's penalty. Despite a heroic performance by Iran all they could talk about was how VAR handed Iran a point with a poor decision. No talk AT ALL about how VAR also denied us a point against Spain (rightly so, but the point is without VAR that'd have been a goal). Awful bias from the BBC, much much worse than the ref's performance because I actually found that over the course of the game he was ok.

[Babak agha]

The question is whether he was unfair and not whether he was good/capable.

No he wasn't unfair. He could have given us many more yellows. He could have not given us the penalty but he did. I think Ronaldo should have gotten a red card (as he wanted to punch the guy in the back of his head but he missed so he hit him with his elbow) but I've seen multiple ref saying that it wasn't a red card so.......

And on Azmoun's "penalty": this is football not volleyball or tennis. The players and coaches don't get to ask for the VAR. The ref does, or he is told (in case of penalties, red cards or goals that should not be counted) by the video ref to go check the video.

[marouane]

i think the referre was fair for iran but iran missed the game, i think also carlos queiroz didnt not well during this word cup (its my point of view maybe ........) but iran after beating morocco can easly go to the next round and i say easly, i realise now that the best player in iranian team is not alireza or sardar its amiri (this guy is very good ) and its my point of view

[KC McElroy]

Other than the Ronaldo red card he was fine.