Article by Maria Olteanu – Published Sunday, June 14, 2026, 06:44 / Updated Sunday, June 14, 2026 06:44
In the match between Switzerland and Qatar ended 1-1, a boundary penalty was awarded for the European team, from which the Swiss later opened the scoring. FIFA issued a statement regarding what happened, after the replays did not show the lines drawn by the VAR camera, in a phase that, at first glance, appeared to be offside.
FIFA had to intervene due to the fact that the VAR animation did not work in this match, but according to the international forum, the workflow was not interrupted and did not influence the decision-making.
What FIFA sent after the technical error in Switzerland – Qatar
In the 14th minute, Remo Freuler got to the ball at the edge of the six-meter box, and the Qatari goalkeeper took a risk and committed an obvious foul, after which the referee pointed to the penalty spot.
The VAR review was activated to clear up any confusion about the decision as offside was suspected, but ultimately the Swiss international was not in an offside position according to the VAR panel. In the end, Embolo surely converted from the spot and gave the advantage for the Swiss, who lost points in the last minute of extra time.
After the appearance of the dilemmas facing this phase, in the context where the lines drawn were not seen on the TV replays, FIFA felt that it was necessary to intervene to explain the situation, according to sportal.blic.rs.
During the match between Qatar and Switzerland in the San Francisco Bay Area, a brief technical outage prevented the generation of the offside 3D graphics (animation) prior to the penalty awarded to Switzerland in the 14th minute. The issue was quickly resolved.
This problem did not affect the activity of the video assistant (VAR), who followed the standard procedure when verifying the decision taken on the field. The lines used by the VAR to check the position of the relevant players did not indicate that the striker was offside in either of the two situations immediately preceding the penalty decision.
– FIFA statement
The image shared by FIFA, after the line replay was not seen on the broadcast // photo: X @FIFA
