This was a subtle moment after the first half ended. The coach of the Norwegian football team, Stäle Solbakken, rushed to referee Clément Turpin and visibly angrily explained something to him at the same time while pointing somewhere towards the stands or into the clouds. As it turned out, he complained that before the equalizing goal by the Englishmen for 1:1 in the quarter-finals of the World Cup (eventually 1:2), the ball touched the cable holding the mobile camera. FIFA denies this.

The Norwegians led 1:0, but shortly before the end of first half Jude Bellingham equalized. At the start of the sequence was a kick-off by Norwegian goalkeeper Örjan Nyland which the Englishmen recognized and launched a successful counter-attack. And here is where according to the Swedes problem arose. "The ball hit the cable on the mobile camera above the pitch, so the kickoff was shorter than it should have been," said half-time assistant Kent Bergersen for Norwegian media.

"If this is true, it's a scandal. It shouldn't have been 1:1. I've never seen anything like that before. If this decides the result, it will remain one of the biggest scandals in World Cup history," said former footballer Kristoffer Lökberg for NRK TV.

"If it turns out that the ball hit the cable, we are facing a scandal of ages," added his expert colleague Carl-Erik Torp. "It's absolutely crazy. Can something like this really happen? The referee couldn't have noticed it though. And Norwegians should have rushed onto the pitch immediately," emphasized former Norwegian national team defender Kjetil Rekdal in VGTV studio.

The rules speak quite clearly. If a ball hits an object that is not part of the game, play must be stopped and restarted with a throw-in by the referee. Web VG.no immediately contacted FIFA and the following response came: "We checked the data and do not see any reaction on the graph that would have been recorded by a chip in the ball." FIFA subsequently added video as proof (above in the article).

Expert View from Nova Action

Martin Fillo: "If there is a chip in the ball, it should record this."

Rudolf Skácel: "It's strange. If there was contact, it's gross interference, but everyone continued playing."

sport.cz / gnews.cz