Egypt's coach Hossam Hassan didn't mince words after his side went out. "FIFA wanted to keep the world champion in the competition," he said. "Perhaps they wanted Messi to stay in the running." When a national coach says that publicly, it's not noise — it's a headline.
The match itself gave him reason to say it. Referees voided an Egyptian goal for a foul, reportedly declined to investigate a potential foul by Argentina, and the final result sent Egypt home. The Egyptian Football Association followed up with a formal statement saying it "cannot remain silent," citing "serious concerns" about the consistency of officiating decisions. Someone even allegedly hacked Argentina's football federation systems and sent mass emails to reporters declaring: "The robbery will not go unnoticed."
Argentina's draw has been conveniently kind
The favoritism angle is easy to dismiss — until you look at Argentina's path through this tournament. They have not faced a single team ranked inside the top 13 in the FIFA rankings. Not one. They're now in the semifinals, eight Messi goals later, having navigated one of the softer brackets a defending champion could ask for. Whether that's luck or something else, it's the kind of stat that fuels exactly the conversation FIFA would rather not be having.
FIFA's refereeing chief Pierluigi Collina pushed back, saying "unfounded allegations have no place in our sport" and insisting "nobody can claim that FIFA refereeing can be influenced by anyone, not even by the FIFA president." Argentina manager Lionel Scaloni was equally dismissive: "There hasn't been any favoritism." Fine. But FIFA's credibility on this stuff is not exactly unimpeachable — executives have previously been charged for rigging World Cup host bids, Infantino is facing criticism over his proximity to Donald Trump, and the lifting of Folani Balogun's red card after a Trump phone call to Infantino didn't exactly help the optics.
Argentina vs England — and 40 years of history
Whatever you think of the controversy, Argentina are in the semis and face England on Wednesday at 3 p.m. EDT in Atlanta. The winner plays Spain in the final. The fixture carries its own weight without any added drama: Maradona's Hand of God in 1986, a war in the South Atlantic as backdrop, and four decades of mutual disdain baked into every meeting between these two sides.
Messi has eight goals in the tournament, level with Kylian Mbappé at the top of the scoring charts. At 38 and worth $1.1 billion according to Forbes, this is almost certainly his last World Cup. The storyline writes itself — and that's exactly what makes the favoritism claims so combustible. When the tournament's most marketable player keeps winning in controversial circumstances, questions don't go away just because officials say they should.
"Constructive discussion about decisions will always be part of football," Collina said. Egypt and their supporters are doing exactly that.
