Egypt's head coach Hossam Hassan spoke with French referee Francois Letexier during the 2026 World Cup round of 16 match between Argentina and Egypt at Atlanta Stadium on July 7, 2026. (Photo by ROBERTO SCHMIDT / AFP)
On Wednesday, the Egyptian football federation said it has asked for the referees who handled the Pharaohs' 3-2 loss to Argentina to be removed from the World Cup.
Hany Aburida, the President of the Egyptian Football Federation, filed a complaint with FIFA. He wants an investigation into referee Francois Letexier due to serious mistakes by the referees and double standards that caused Egypt to lose the match and exit the World Cup. This was stated in a federation announcement.
On Tuesday evening, Letexier disallowed a goal by Mostafa Ziko when Egypt was leading 1-0. VAR intervened to spot a foul on Lisandro Martinez earlier in the play.
A few minutes later, Ziko scored again, putting Egypt 2-0 up and close to reaching the quarter-finals for the first time. But then more controversy arose in added time, after Cristian Romero and Lionel Messi brought Argentina back to level terms.
Egypt believes they should have been awarded a penalty for a foul by Alexis Mac Allister on Hamdy Fathy just before Argentina's winning goal scored by Enzo Fernandez.
Aburida demanded an investigation of the entire refereeing team, including the video technology referees. He pointed out the obvious errors and the refusal to review some footage that could have helped the Egyptian team. The federation sees this as a denial of a legitimate goal and a penalty for Egypt.
The statement added that Aburida also asked for the referee and the entire crew to be excluded from the World Cup after investigating these mistakes and proving they discriminated against the Egyptian team.
The statement matched comments made by Egypt's coach Hossam Hassan right after the game.
"I do not want to sugarcoat it and talk about bad luck. We were cheated unfairly today; we faced injustice," Hassan told journalists.
"We haven’t seen respect or fair play. There has not been respect or fair play."
Hassan also told BeIN, "Maybe they wanted to keep the world champions in the tournament. Maybe they wanted Messi to stay in the race.
"In football, sometimes there are outside factors that go beyond what is technical. The world champions received support at every level."
Drop your comment
No comments yet — be the first to drop the gist 👇