Indian football supporters were incensed that their country was not given the opportunity to qualify for the third round of the FIFA World Cup Qualifiers, as a result of subpar officiating. At the Asian champions on June 11, Qatar triumphed 2-1 at the Jassim bin Hamad Stadium thanks to a contentious goal.
Lallianzuala Chhangte’s goal in the 37th minute put India ahead, but tragedy struck when Yousef Aymen’s equalizer in the 73rd minute was ruled fair by the referee when it looked like the ball had left the play. After the contentious ruling, Qatar’s Ahmed Al-Rawi scored their second goal in the 85th minute, completely changing the course of the match.
Gurpreet Singh Sandhu, the Indian goalie, stopped play after stopping a header from Qatar. The Indian defense was then left waiting for the referee to blow his whistle. The football was dragged back into play by Qatari player Al Hassan to square it to Aymen, who passed it into an empty goal, but the referee did nothing.
This bad refereeing infuriated football fans, who labeled it outright cheating. The worst thing about this, according to a user on X, is that Qatari players Nos. 5 and 6 obviously recognized the ball had gone outside, yet they still celebrated the goal.
“Qatar’s blatant cheating against India is outrageous!” Another user questioned, “Why is there no VAR? They would have not been able to cheat”. “Shameful day for soccer”
“Rank 34th Qatar did an open robbery against Rank 121st India even when Qatar is already qualified for 3rd round.”
“Kim Woo-Sung, the South Korean referee for the game hands out a yellow card to India’s Sahal, for only repeatedly asking about the refereeing blunder earlier in the game, which led to Qatar unfairly leveling the game”.
“Awful refereeing, that too in a world cup qualifying match! Shameful act by the Qatari footballers as well. Today is a black day in the history of football”
“They Helped Kuwait indirectly now India is knocked out and Kuwait is automatically qualified. So they did it on purpose by buying referee . Oil money is Ruining this beautiful Sport”
“4th ranked Qatar robbed 121st ranked India’s chance to qualify for the FIFA WC by cheating. Even a blind person could tell that the ball went outside before going into the goal post, but the match referee couldn’t”
