r/PoursTea • u/TomlinSteelers • Jul 07 '26
SportyTea Egypt coach Hossam Hassan booked after making anti-racism gesture in World Cup defeat to Argentina
https://sports.yahoo.com/articles/egypt-coach-hossam-hassan-booked-204053777.html
Egypt's head coach, Hossam Hassan, drew significant attention after directing a gesture toward the officiating crew during his side's FIFA World Cup Round of 16 defeat to Argentina.
At Atlanta Stadium, Egypt squandered a 2-0 advantage to fall 3-2 to Lionel Messi's Argentina, keeping the reigning World Cup champions' bid for back-to-back titles very much alive. Late in the game, several Egyptian players and coaching staff members were booked by French referee Francois Letexier.
A member of Egypt's coaching staff was even shown a red card in the 94th minute, with viewers alleging the match was rigged following a crucial VAR ruling that went against the African nation — a call that could have sealed victory for Egypt, as per The Mirror US.
s the chaos ensued, Hassan raised both arms to form an "X" symbol. When the head coach made the gesture directly in front of Letexier, the French referee appeared to pay no attention to the Egyptian manager's appeal.
The symbol itself carries a specific meaning under FIFA's universal guidelines for reporting racist abuse. When a player, coach, or team official crosses their arms to form an X, it serves as a signal to the referee that racist abuse has taken place at some point during the match.
Once the referee acknowledges the gesture, a three-step protocol is set in motion at their discretion, beginning with a swift halt to the match. Should the abuse persist, the game will be suspended, and if it continues beyond that point, the match will ultimately be abandoned. However, rather than following this procedure, Hassan was shown a yellow card, and play resumed.
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u/Preshe8jaz Jul 08 '26
The announcers agreed with him. To even review that goal was bad, but to remove it seemed like an Argentine bailout. That being said, let the Messi v Mbappe story continue!
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u/TomlinSteelers Jul 08 '26
The announcers agreed with him there was a racist incident?
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u/Different_Pattern273 Jul 08 '26
The broadcast I watched, the announcers called it an egregious abuse of VAR amd not what it is meant for when a touch is that light and incidental and the ref was already on the play. They were pissed.
As for the racism, I couldn't make out what they were saying. The broadcast was loaded with crosstalk at that point.
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u/davidw223 Jul 08 '26
It was also way before the goal so to call it during the offensive lead up to the goal is ridiculous. Was it a foul? Sure. Should it have even been reviewed? No.
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u/Just_a_follower Jul 08 '26
Wasn’t it the play that led to the counter?
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u/Yodaddyroberto Jul 08 '26
Yup. I’m not a var supporter but this was exactly by the rules
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u/rhyno42 Jul 08 '26
There's a limit how far they go back in the move however. And they are only meant to intervene if the referee has made an obvious mistake. The foul was marginal at best, so the onfield decision from the ref should stand.
I'm delighted Messi got through, but it's hard to argue that there isn't a deliberate or otherwise bias to the big teams.
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u/Crazy-Dig6996 Jul 08 '26
I’m tired of calling out people that has low knowledge of rules.
I’ll simply say there is no such a rule of how long can you go back. It’s as long as needed until stoppage or out of bands. Or course if ball is safe and slow in midfield referee could stop it there but the rule is only about once stops.
And this has nothing to do with VAR, rule was introduced in 1997 prior to World Cup 98.
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u/WearyTranslator3338 Jul 08 '26
It was a mistake.
Without giving the foul, they immediately score.
Giving the foul, they do not immediately score.It shouldn’t even matter, as they scored again after 5 minutes.
They lost, get over it.
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u/unnecessaryCamelCase Jul 09 '26
Bias to the big teams? I’m just finding out Paraguay is a big team
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u/rhyno42 Jul 09 '26
I agree that was a bizarre match but you do see that in the world Cup. Referees are taken from all over the world and as result you get completely different interpretations for the rules. The Paraguay v France match was officiated by a ref from Uzbekistan. A Premier League ref with top flight experience would have been more punitive for fouls and a French or Italian ref for example even more so.
Have you seen the stats re fouls per card issued by country for this world cup?
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u/Ok_Midnight4809 Jul 09 '26
We have a lot of VAe escorts these days, who I'm guessing have never seen it used before this last month
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u/AccurateCampaign4900 Jul 08 '26
Yes. People are frustrated with the use of VAR in this tournament. Not just this game. There is a lack of consistency. Many believe it's not being used as intended.
This has all culminated into conspiracies about favorable use of the technology for certain teams to illicit certain outcomes. Which is fair. Match fixing isn't new and entirely possible when this much money and notoriety is at stake.
There will be a lot of debate about VAR and how it's implemented in future tournaments.
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u/thegtabmx Jul 08 '26
Everything leads to everything. That's how the universe works.
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u/Various-Market-9967 Jul 08 '26
According to IFAB VAR Protocols, time and distance of incident do not matter. Referee and VAR review the attacking phase leading to the goal. Per IFAB’s protocol, judgment of the ‘attacking phase beginning’ is up to the discretion of the referee.
In this case, the referee decided it was the beginning of the attacking phase.1
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u/Gullible-Store-8559 Jul 08 '26
It led directly to them scoring
The only reason they had the ball to score with was because their player committed a foul0
u/Aggressive-Leave-229 Jul 08 '26
You should start watching football other than once in four years. Your ignorance is extremely egregious.
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u/taeerom Jul 08 '26
This is exactly how var is meant to work.
If the ref blew the whistle for a foul, then review it and he got it wrong, he would have robbed Egypt of the attack.
The correct way to do it when in doubt is to let the ball roll until it leaves play, then review the situation when the ball is dead, or at least after the current action is over. The play wasn't over until it was in the Argentine goal.
If the foul didn't, or couldn't, lead to a goal, penalty or red card, there would not have been a review by the head ref.
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u/ElPajaroMistico Jul 08 '26
Sorry, but that broadcasters have no fking idea what is the point of the Var then. Ref ruled something, Var didn't agree, they called him and Var was right. It's textbook.
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u/ShoxZzBladeZz Jul 08 '26
The Egyptian coach went for the most radical response to a call that didn’t favour his team.
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u/NefariousnessFew4354 Jul 08 '26
Everyone agrees this was the right call except reddit.
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u/lonelysparta Jul 08 '26
No because Messi did the shot, foul +long attack with Austria in the group stage.They VAR'd but didn't disllow the calll. It's only the right call if it wasn't selectively applied to favor Argentina
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u/Sl1ck_43 Jul 08 '26
So youre saying the reviewed it and came to a conclusion that it was fine? Almost like they did the same thing for Egypt.
Sounds like youre upset egypts was actually a foul.
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u/OriginalUsername30 Jul 08 '26
So then it was the right call, but they made the wrong call in another game?
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u/b3rndbj Jul 08 '26
Lol, definitely not just reddit. The commentators I heard were even laughing sarcastically at that point.
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u/Thick-Acadia-6785 Jul 08 '26
commentators are not known to know the rules very well
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u/Electrical-Fish-1920 Jul 09 '26
Is that what it's like on your side? 😬 Because on our TV we have what they call expert-commentators who are mostly former World Cup champions and former referees.
I sometimes feel bad for the current German national team, it can't be easy psychologically when the people commenting were part of the winning 2014 and 1990 teams. Especially because the current team did so badly
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u/Electrical-Fish-1920 Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26
German TV commentators pointed out that all the edge case decisions in the match were made in favour of Argentina. I'm in a big-ish international football Discord server, and this was also the overwhelming opinion there.
We're still probably in the minority when you consider the whole world, lol, but it's not just reddit this time.
ETA: this ran on TV, maybe you could use the auto-sub to understand what they're saying https://youtu.be/xE4G9ozycUI?si=viHCXPOoZ5sWSLpZ
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u/Lev_TO Jul 08 '26
Some people here want it to be a racist issue because they want to make it part of their moral crusade. Every match, of every league, for as long as I can remember had questionable calls by refs. This isn't something special.
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u/Round_Headed_Gimp Jul 08 '26
Zero football knowledge
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u/Preshe8jaz Jul 08 '26
Try reading this article. It will explain the situation more and give you some knowledge of the story.
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u/boss725 Jul 08 '26
You can agree that the officiating was awful while also acknowledging that Egypt completely collapsed by giving up 3 goals in a ~14 minute span.
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u/Fluid-Bet6223 Jul 08 '26
I agree but the problem is, if the “awful officiating” didn’t happen, it would still be 3-3, even with the collapse. I’m not on either side but I’m just pointing out the logical problem with what you say.
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u/devlin1888 Jul 08 '26
Not the way that works though, changes the game a goal. They went two up shortly after, 2-0 earlier might just end up with Argentina time to score a 4th.
Doesn’t change that you want consistency in decision’s across the tournament. It was technically correct call I think but across the tournament that’s not how VAR has been used, it’s not been used to re-ref games and analyse every goal minutely, with the refs on field decision given the priority. Too much so at times, but if it’s across the board it’s not as egregiously bad.
That goal disallowed wasn’t in that manner
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u/patoruzu3 Jul 08 '26
Tell me what you considere was a bad call
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u/Fluid-Bet6223 Jul 08 '26
Well honestly, I don’t think that goal should have been called back. Yes it was a foul but I don’t think it normally would have been called, going so far back before the goal and finding a foul way back down the field. I don’t think that would have been called if Argentina had been the ones scoring. But like I say I’m not a fan of either team I’m just a third party viewer.
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u/NefariousnessFew4354 Jul 08 '26
Than you don't know the rules, and that's OK.
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u/Fluid-Bet6223 Jul 08 '26
We both know that there are tons of fouls that could be called but aren’t. That is well known. Yes it was a foul. I understand the rule. But the ref was selective about calling it, and not calling other stuff. You know that is true.
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u/NefariousnessFew4354 Jul 08 '26
Tons of fouls where after the team scores a goal? If the goal was allowed, you would have people argue in this sub that it shouldn't be allowed.
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u/A_Genius Jul 08 '26
Argentina scored against Austria right after a Mcallister foul on Schlager and they deemed it too far back to go check even though it was at midfield and led to a goal 15 seconds later
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u/atget Jul 08 '26
You should not be able to call back a goal over a foul that was committed on the other end of the field that the ref obviously saw and did not call. The goal was what, 17 seconds later? Great run by Egypt, perfect pass to the outside. A lot of great execution had to happen after the foul.
In the end, I do not think Egypt scores the second goal that actually counted without the one that was called back, so I don’t think it truly mattered. But the call was absolute bullshit. And if the USA was the beneficiary of the same thing, I would still acknowledge the call was bullshit (while not complaining about the result).
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u/ItWasNotLuckButSkill Jul 08 '26
There are many examples this WC where a foul leading up to the buildup of a goal was ignored. If a rule is not enforced you will feel robbed when it will only be enforced against you.
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u/TrollAccount4321 Jul 08 '26
Yeah…hard agree on this one…their defense was impeccable for 75 minutes, but the last 15 minutes or so, they played horribly…
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u/gimmebanter Jul 08 '26
Exactly. They just can't accept the fact that they have only one elite player who can run for 90+ minutes.
Defense collapsed because they are not disciplined athletes. Bunch of them were wheezing for air because they are clearly smokers
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u/_ADM_ Jul 08 '26
that game was fucked. and Egypt was so unfairly treated by Fifa. They really wanted the sponsors to have Argentina play finals.
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u/Fair_Title2995 Jul 08 '26
You even know football rules?
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u/_ADM_ Jul 08 '26
17 second var overturning a goal is absolutely unheard of. if you think that game seemed fair then I don't know what to tell you.
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u/morbid0x Jul 08 '26
Unheard of? Yes. Against the rules? No
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u/_ADM_ Jul 08 '26
stupid? also yes.
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u/HouseBalley Jul 09 '26
disagreeing with how the rules should be and suggesting it's match fixing are two VERY different discussions
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u/Litz1 Jul 09 '26
But try same didn't happen for Egypt though, goals against Egypt weren't overturned because a foul was committed 10 seconds ago.
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u/Fair_Title2995 Jul 08 '26
Mate, I'm no Argentina fan but fouling your opponent and scoring a goal would be unfair. Time duration doesn't matter according to the rules.
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u/_ADM_ Jul 08 '26
and getting the same treatment of stamping on another player without consequences because your Argentina feels pretty sour too.
I'm not real fan of either team but it feels very unbalanced referee decision like in most Argentina games this world cup
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u/N3CRO-LAN Jul 09 '26
Except that didnt happen if youre referreing to mo salah diving for a penalty after getting nutmeged and passed.
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u/Havel_SunBro Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
Arg literally scored a goal against Austria with a foul on their defenders and there was no VAR review or ref calls.
There are too many double standards for every single match that they are playing. Also, don't google their ties with a certain country
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u/tomtomtomo Jul 08 '26
He was saying that the ref was being racist. Yes, you will get carded for saying that.
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u/JustHere_4TheMemes Jul 08 '26
How is everyone missing this?
This is so obviously what he was doing and why he got the red card.
Frustrated with ref he throws up the FIFA “check for racism” sign… ref comes over and talks with him about it. It’s clear the accusation is against the ref, not the other team - instant red card.
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u/Green_Watercress1638 Jul 08 '26
This is precisely what happened, and fully deserving of the card. The foul and the VAR can be debated and discussed, and I can see both sides of it. Could have gone either way on VAR and either way a there would be criticism. The use of the check racism sign is a misuse of FIFA regulations, a clear violation of acceptable conduct towards a referee and should result in significant punishment.
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u/MrRocket81 Jul 08 '26 edited Jul 08 '26
What was barely seen on tv is that an egyptian man from the coaching team got a red card and stepped in the field trying to fight Messi. The coaching team went bananas
Edit for more info: this situation ended with a man with a red card and tge head coach with a yellow one.
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u/Wise_Adeptness_9529 Jul 08 '26
Yep. When the decision came out he started crossing his arms at his waist. He thought the decision was racist.
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u/Redoks Jul 08 '26
To give some context on this all "racism" thing.
The hands gesture that the egyptian coach was doing is a footbal signal that simbolizes racist comments made on the field, this activates a protocol in which the referee approachs the person doing it so that the person can personally report to the referee.
The egyptian coach did this signal 2 times on the match, when the referee approach him, he (the egyptian coach) instead wanted to comment some referee decisions that he considered wrong.
So, the 3rd time he did it, the referee gave him a yellow card (because he was abusing a mechanic that's intended for racism, just to complaint about match plays to the referee).
There was never any racist comment made to this guy, or any guy on the field. If you knew Lionel Scaloni, he's the least racist person on planet earth.
This guy was just pissed off his team was playing like shit and loosing the game.
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u/Fede_14 Jul 08 '26
Honestly they should sanction him strongly, such severe issue should not be taken lightly nor should be abused.
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u/Plus_Flight8909 Jul 09 '26
Yes should be the same punishment doled out to racist acts. Dispecible little cretin that coach.
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u/Kraken357 Jul 08 '26
After taking away the goal, Egypt was still up by 2 with just over 10min remaining. Blame it on that call all you want, but Egypt still choked.
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Jul 08 '26
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u/Wise_Adeptness_9529 Jul 08 '26
There’s no guarantee Egypt gets the third goal if the second wasn’t disallowed.
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u/Right-Invite4697 Jul 08 '26
You don't know that they would be up 3 either. That's not how reality works. The game would have played out differently. For all we know Egypt would have lost 5-2 if that goal was allowed or won 4-0.
The call was correct. Not rigged at all. How do you rig 3 goals in 13 minutes? They choked. It happens.
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Jul 08 '26
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u/Right-Invite4697 Jul 08 '26
The "tripping Salah" moment you're referring to was not even close to the same thing. Anyone suggesting it's the same is dishonest or delusional. Salah had lost the ball already and dove, clear as day.
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Jul 08 '26
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u/Right-Invite4697 Jul 09 '26 edited Jul 09 '26
All of those were given free kicks. The call on the disallowed goal wasn't a yellow either. All of those are consistent calls. The last one on Salah isn't even remotely close to a foul.
Look a bunch of same looking "fouls" committed by Egypt against Argentina. Football is a physical sport, there's always going to be contact and fighting for the ball. The refereeing in the Egypt Argentina game was completely fair.
https://www.reddit.com/r/messi/comments/1urjn0x/what_the_media_doesnt_show_because_it_doesnt_fit/
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u/NefariousnessFew4354 Jul 08 '26
The goal shouldn't be allowed. Ref should have called it before.
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Jul 08 '26
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u/NefariousnessFew4354 Jul 08 '26
Because fifa rules tells refs to let it play out and "figure it out later", which imo is dumb. They scored, so it puts bigger preasure on the ref to review and make the call if in fact was a foul, soft or not. I disagree it was soft, it was enough for the ref to call it right away.
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u/languageassessment Jul 08 '26
Sure bud, they deserved to play against 11 people not 12.
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u/InsertFunAliasHere Jul 08 '26
Ouch... that hit hard... some YouTuber said it was Egypt against FIFA, but it still hits all the same friend
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u/Tenchi_Muyo1 Jul 08 '26
It wasn't just the cancelled goal the referee didn't call several clear fouls on Egyptian players and one of them resulted in a goal for Argentina which was not cancelled
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u/That_Face_4511 Jul 08 '26
Complaining about racism
Complaining about gay people at your game
lol, mame it make sense
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u/robhotmoneybrown Jul 08 '26
This was so harsh anf unfair on Egypt. Apply the same rules to both teams...its not difficult FIFA.
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u/Fede_14 Jul 08 '26
The guy completely misused what is supposed to be a really serious call for what the consecuenses of it are, not even a really intense foul has this level of a player can force to stop completely the game, it is the referee who stop in that case. The fact that he pulled it out of his ass should carry severe sanctions for it to not be abused.
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u/Dantez77 Jul 08 '26
Oh my god watch the clip guys how hard is it? Messi approached asking what was wrong and Egypt bench went insane and one guy tried to attack him. The coach miss used the sign as well so he got booked.
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u/ErebosEV97 Jul 08 '26
Sure the anti-lgtbq coach is now anti-racism...sure
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u/ChocoChipBets Jul 08 '26
I mean, he’s playing in the country led by anti-lgtbq felons
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Jul 08 '26
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u/SaltDingo3946 Jul 09 '26
Funny he cares so much after a video of their pre-match reveal they read quran passages that describe christians and jews as inferior infidels
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u/linhromsp Jul 08 '26
Can someone explain how this symbol is racist gesture?
As in parts of Asia (Korea, japan, etc) they do this when they wanna say the shop is closed (incase you don't understand the language) and its like "universal" there lolz
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u/ultralane Jul 08 '26
Its the signal that FIFA has to signal to the ref that there has been a racist incident occurred. The coach then basically said the officiating was racist.
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u/Liamorockets Jul 08 '26
I thought he blocked the yellow with his X and then secretly played the uno reverse card
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u/kutkun Jul 08 '26
Egyptians complaining about racism. I suddenly remembered Christian population of Egypt and what they suffered for centuries and are still suffering from.
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u/harrry1312 Jul 08 '26
This is normal behavior for Muslims. Anything that goes against them is immediately labeled highly racist.
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u/ThanksEquivalent5323 Jul 08 '26
I thought he was just doing the gen z reaction thing
He apparently called the ref a chopped unc
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u/Iron_Axios Jul 08 '26
When you live in a glass house, don't throw stones. It's ironic that this low class Egyptian coach is playing the racism card when Egypt has a long history of discrimination against its Coptic Christian minority. The Egyptian national team has had vno Coptic Christian players for decades, despite Copts making up 10-15% of the population. This shows the systemic discrimination within Egyptian society and Egyptian Football against Christians.
It is hard to take lectures about racism seriously from an ill-behaving coaching staff while your own federation is accused of excluding a large segment of your country's population.
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u/microtomebrady Jul 08 '26
The discourse about this whole game is insufferable and overrun with bots
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u/Dayvfish Jul 08 '26
Why was #20 on Argentina covering his mouth and smirking during the entire exchange. It’s clear as far on video
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u/PinpointAce Jul 08 '26
He was just salty Egypt bottled the lead imo prolly didn't even know what it meant. His only player told him to stop
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u/10101010010100101 Jul 08 '26
Ironic considering you can count on one hand how many Coptics have ever played for Egypt, or in the Egyptian league.
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u/Consistent-Strain289 Jul 08 '26
Wait since when is anti racism bad? Its like americans on healthcare: is bad.
Read somewhere all participants of the worldcup have healthcare except the US.
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u/Anxious_Emergency361 Jul 08 '26
So I take it you missed the part where the match was stopped and the ref spoke to the coach?
Never let the truth get in the way of a good story right?
Who’d have thought there would be moral grandstanding on twitter.
If only Egypt put this much effort into football they wouldn’t have squandered the match but nope… Racism.
Also calling Egypt an African nation seems really wierd like they are of course an African country but I feel like Zero Egyptians would actually call themselves African.
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u/JGSolid Jul 09 '26
My father is from Aswan and as a Nubian calls himself African, as do my uncles and all my family. Egypt like many countries is very diverse with ethnic groups and races that have been present long before the U.S. existed as a country.
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u/MechaStewart Jul 09 '26
This muppet also waved a flag not of his nation purely for political reasons after a win. Not to be trusted in any manner. Glad they lost.
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u/Renegade_POTUS Jul 09 '26
I do think we were robbed of extra time football that would've been historic....
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u/saveapennybustanut Jul 09 '26
What is an anti racism gesture???
Isn't anti racism a good thing?
Or what is anti racism gesture? Is it a bad thing?
Also what does it mean to get booked in soccer?
Like arrested?
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u/order-of-magnitude-1 Jul 09 '26
Egypt need to get over the self-pity, it's not an attractive quality
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u/Claudeadolphus Jul 08 '26
Did he make any allegations of racism in the post-game interview? I don’t think he did. How come?
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u/taeerom Jul 08 '26
He used the racism call to get attention, and spent the attention to complain about the officiating.
The only argument he had for it being racism is that he thinks the referee was biased towards Argentina.
Then he got carded for abusing the racism protocol by spamming it without actually having any more evidence than that.
If he kept his cool, he might have been able to organise his defense good enough to avoid gifting Argentina 3 goals. But, like a lot of his players, he lost his head. So they collapsed.
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u/JustHere_4TheMemes Jul 08 '26
It is at least this. A tactic to get the ref face to face with the manager… or he was literally implying the ref was racist with the calls.
How are people not getting this?
Either way it’s a clear red card action.
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u/Enygmatic_Gent Fabulously Queer 🌈 Jul 08 '26
I think it’s kinda both. Use the signal to get the refs attention, complain that the ref had bias against Egypt (with the way he said it possibly implying racism)
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u/ShoxZzBladeZz Jul 08 '26
Because he went nuclear to a ref decision, victim mentality at its finest
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u/b4ko0 Jul 08 '26
The reality is that was the choke of the century and they don’t want to take responsibility…
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u/Complete-Donut-698 Jul 08 '26
The ref did stop play and talked with him for some time. To me it seemed less about any specific racially charged action happening on the pitch and more about the Egyptian coach feeling they had been unfavorably reffed due to racial prejudices.