FIFA has confirmed that the technology providing VAR offside images went down before Switzerland's controversial opener in their World Cup match against Qatar.
Controversial Penalty Decision
Breel Embolo scored from the penalty spot for the European side after Remo Freuler was fouled. However, Freuler appeared to be offside in the build-up. FIFA did not provide a replay and has now revealed that the technology generating semi-automatic offside images had failed.
FIFA Statement
A FIFA statement read: "During the Qatar vs. Switzerland match in the San Francisco Bay Area, a brief technical outage prevented the onside animation graphic from being generated ahead of the penalty awarded to Switzerland in the 14th minute. The issue was quickly resolved."
The statement added: "The workflow of the VAR was not affected by this issue and followed the normal procedure in checking the on-field decision. The lines used by the VAR to check the position of the relevant players did not show the attacking player to be in an offside position in either of the two situations immediately before the penalty decision."
More updates on this breaking story will follow.
