Football fans love a petition.
Hundreds of thousands of French football fans have signed an online petition calling for the World Cup final to be replayed because they think the referee made some crucial mistakes.
The final on Sunday saw Argentina beat France on penalties after playing out a thrilling 3-3 draw over the course of 120 minutes.
The fallout from the final is still rumbling on though. Not only has the French Football Federation lodged an official complaint against Argentina’s celebrations over the last few days, but now we’ve reached the infamous phase where fans decide a petition will change things.
More than 200,000 furious fans of the losing side have put their name to MesOpinions, an online petition website, saying that the match must be replayed because they think both of Argentina’s goals in normal time should never have been allowed to happen.
Lionel Messi put his first goal away from the penalty spot after Ousmane Dembele was judged to have brought down Argentina’s Angel Di Maria in the box.
However, the petition says this was “never a penalty”, claiming that the contact was minimal and that the 34-year-old Juventus winger went down easily.
The petition creators also raised issues with the second goal, claiming Kylian Mbappe was fouled at one end of the pitch by Cristian Romero, and that play should have been stopped there.
Obviously, a foul wasn’t called, and a sublime Argentina counterattack was launched and finished with Di Maria getting his own name on the scoresheet to make it 2-0 in the 36th minute.
Going against the widespread praise for Polish referee Szymon Marciniak’s performance in the final, the petition claimed the referee was “totally sold” by the Argentinians.
The MailOnline reports that the petition is now one of the top 20 most signed demands on MesOpinions.
The website states that it requires 500,000 signatories to become one of the top three most signed petitions.
