#广场预测世界杯赢40000U More than 2.5 million signatures call for Argentina to be kicked out of the World Cup: FIFA and referees are biased toward Messi and Argentina, the champion has already been decided; kick Argentina out of the World Cup and give other teams a fair chance

Citing reports from Chinese Blue News, it has recently drawn widespread attention online that a petition calling for the cancellation of Argentina’s World Cup participation rights.

The petition has been posted on a website and has already received more than 2.5 million signatures.

The petition states: “It’s obvious that FIFA (FIFA) and the referees are biased toward Messi and Argentina. Since the champion has already been decided, what chance do other countries have to participate? Kick Argentina out of the World Cup and give other teams a fair chance.”

Earlier, according to Xinhua News Agency, Beijing time on July 8, in the dire situation of being down 0-2, with Messi having missed a penalty in the first half, the defending champion Argentina team scored three goals within the final 13 minutes of the match, performing a miraculous comeback to beat Egypt and advance to the quarterfinals of the CONCACAF World Cup.

Argentina celebrated for the win, but from Egypt’s perspective, they believe such a result was seriously unfair. In Egypt’s view, on the one hand, the team had a goal retrospectively canceled for a prior foul; on the other hand, Argentina’s match-winning shot, after VAR review, overlooked an apparent foul committed by an Argentina player against Salah before—one that should have led to canceling Argentina’s goal and awarding Egypt a penalty.

Egypt’s head coach Houssam Hassan was furious: “I’m going to say what I think, whatever the consequences. This is obviously a match that was manipulated, and the whole world has seen it. And I want to say one more thing: if they were so eager for Argentina to win, why did they even call us these teams to participate?”

Hassan said plainly that FIFA wanted Messi to stay in the World Cup: “FIFA advocates fair competition, but we didn’t see it on the pitch. If it weren’t for these bad decisions, the result would have been different. It’s all about marketing and money. They want Messi, this world champion, to keep his competitiveness during the matches. In football, many things are determined off the pitch according to the interests of all parties. What happened is unfair. Egypt deserved to advance—we performed better than Argentina.”

According to the Oriental Sports Daily, after Argentina scraped through and beat Cape Verde and Egypt to reach the World Cup quarterfinals, controversy over the officiating in the two matches has drawn dissatisfaction from multiple sides, with some believing FIFA and the referees intentionally favored Argentina. In the pre-match press conference for the just-held quarterfinal, Argentina head coach Scaloni responded to the question of referee bias.

Scaloni said that actually people have been talking about Argentina for a long time—“for example, back in 1986, right? Back then, people also said we were given special treatment, so this isn’t anything new. There are people who don’t want Argentina to win. Even though that’s normal, because there are also people who don’t want other teams to win. It’s just that, for us, maybe there are more people who don’t want us to win—perhaps because we are the defending champions. We know this all too well, and those voices do reach the players’ ears. We’ll use that to ignite a sense of ‘rebellion,’ push them to fight back, and produce even more精彩 performances.”

Scaloni continued: “But getting back to the main point, with VAR and all kinds of systems, it’s very hard to get special treatment—extremely hard. With VAR, there isn’t really much room for ambiguity. They explained it to us very clearly. If someone steps on Lisandro Martínez’s foot, whether it’s a heavy step or a slight touch, that’s a foul. If that leads to a change of possession, the goal will be ruled invalid. There’s no other way to interpret it.”

At the same time, he believes social media amplifies everything, which is why controversy arises. “But there is absolutely no favoritism. On the contrary, today it’s very difficult to favor any side—it’s really close to impossible. I don’t know—maybe many years ago it might have been possible, I’m not sure—but today, it’s almost impossible.”