"What's happening isn't fair." Egypt coach Hossam Hassan said it out loud after his side were knocked out 3-2 by Argentina on a VAR call that disallowed a goal for a foul at the other end of the pitch. But he was saying what half the tournament has been thinking.
The 2026 World Cup was supposed to be the cleanest, most precisely officiated tournament in history. Gianni Infantino and FIFA referees' chief Pierluigi Collina expanded VAR's scope significantly, adding four new areas where officials in the television booth could intervene. The result hasn't been clarity. It's been chaos, conspiracy theories, and Donald Trump calling FIFA's president about a red card.
The numbers are stark
There were 20 VAR interventions across 64 matches in 2018. Fewer than 30 in Qatar in 2022. This tournament blew past both figures in its early stages alone — across an expanded 104-game format, but the intervention rate per match is running at a different level entirely. Red cards more than tripled compared to the previous two World Cups, with 13 issued by the end of the round of 16.
At least two of those red cards — U.S. striker Folarin Balogun and England defender Jarell Quansah — would never have been shown before VAR existed. The referee missed both fouls in real time. That's not an argument for the system working. It raises a harder question: should officials be hunting retroactively for things they didn't see, feel, or act on in the moment?
Collina's answer is yes. "We believe that a foul is a foul," he said this week, defending the disallowed Egypt goal. "Regardless of whether the foul appears 'obvious', if the referee did not see it on the field of play, the VAR can intervene." That is a significant philosophical shift from what VAR was originally designed to do — catch "clear and obvious" errors, not reconstruct entire passages of play.
Croatia and the ball sensor that ended Modric's World Cup
The Croatia-Portugal match brought the technology debate to a new frontier. Josko Gvardiol's 93rd-minute equaliser was ruled out because a sensor embedded in the ball detected contact — possibly from Igor Matanovic's hair — rendering another Croatia player offside. The touch was invisible to the naked eye. The ball didn't deviate. But the sensor registered it, and Croatia were out.
Luka Modric's response was measured but pointed: "If it's a 200% mistake, then you intervene. If it's in a grey area, there's no reason to get involved." The Croatian federation, who actually support VAR in principle, wrote to FIFA calling the decision "an abuse of technology." That's not anti-progress sentiment. That's a federation that understands the tools asking why they were used this way.
Network scientist Brennan Klein, whose team at Northeastern University has been analysing tournament data throughout, put it plainly: "This kind of dystopian future of over-refereeing everything kind of fails to address what it's originally designed to intervene on." He noted that fans in stadiums are "voting with their boos."
Thomas Tuchel, who somehow had to manage a 3-2 win over Mexico as a controversy after Quansah's red card and a VAR penalty against Harry Kane, was furious rather than relieved. "VAR overturns — but is this a clear and obvious error for the penalty? For sure not," he said. "Referees just not good enough, fourth officials just not good enough."
For anyone tracking England's odds deep into this tournament, the combination of a depleted defensive backline and the sense that VAR could swing a match in any direction at any moment makes their path genuinely unpredictable — and not in an exciting way.
Collina says he's "happy with how things are going." The coaches, the players, the fans in the stands, and at least one sitting U.S. president apparently disagree.
