Global controversy over the Egypt-Argentina match.. Did “Litxer” return the favor to FIFA and keep the Pharaohs out of the World Cup?

Reactions continued in Egypt and on the global football scene regarding the controversial refereeing errors that accompanied the Egyptian team’s loss to Argentina in the round of sixteen of the 2026 World Cup, at a time when criticism directed at French referee François Letexer and the VAR crew increased.
The confrontation, which ended with the Egyptian team’s exit from the tournament, sparked a wide wave of controversy after canceling a goal that would have given Egypt the lead, in addition to objections to a number of other arbitration decisions, which opened a wide door to discussion about the mechanism for implementing the video technology protocol.
Litexer, born in 1989, leads a refereeing career that has witnessed a rapid rise on the European and international scene. He officiated his first matches in the French First Division in 2016, before obtaining the international badge from FIFA in 2017, and leading the first international match between Bosnia and Herzegovina and Bulgaria in March 2018.
His career witnessed managing a number of the most prominent continental matches, including the 2019 UEFA Youth Champions League final between Porto and Chelsea, the 2021 French Cup final between Paris Saint-Germain and Monaco, then the 2023 European Super Cup final between Manchester City and Seville, before managing the 2024 European Championship final between Spain and England.
He also worked as a video referee in the 2021 European League final between Villarreal and Manchester United, and officiated three matches in the European Under-21 Championship in the same year.
The match between Egypt and Argentina was Taksar’s third appearance in the 2026 World Cup finals, after he officiated the matches of Ecuador against Côte d’Ivoire, and Saudi Arabia against Cape Verde, but the match turned into one of the most controversial confrontations of the tournament due to the refereeing decisions it witnessed.
Among the most prominent critics, Portuguese coach Jose Mourinho said that what happened was “daylight robbery,” considering that play should have been stopped immediately if a mistake was found on behalf of Mohamed Salah, instead of allowing the attack to continue, in which Argentina scored the winning goal.

Former Mexican international referee Fernando Guerrero, who participated in the video technology crew in the 2022 World Cup final, also believed that the video technology protocol was not applied correctly in the incident of canceling Egypt’s goal, explaining that the case does not fall within the stage of offensive possession that allows a return to review the shot, because the Argentine team had more than one opportunity to recover the ball before scoring the goal.
He added that the decision to cancel a penalty kick in favor of Mohamed Salah – according to his interpretation of the technical protocol – does not comply with the instructions of the video referee, considering that the error caused direct harm to the Egyptian team and contributed to its exit from the tournament.
The criticism extended to a number of former football stars, as Englishman Jamie Carragher considered that the match might have taken a different turn if the disallowed goal had been counted, while Alan Shearer criticized the failure to review the footage of Mohamed Salah being obstructed inside the penalty area before Argentina’s third goal, and wrote on his account on the “X” platform that the incident should have been dealt with by one standard.
Frenchman Patrice Evra also expressed his sympathy for the Egyptian team, considering that the team was subjected to arbitration injustice during the match.

After the match, the President of the Egyptian Football Association, Hani Abu Raida, announced that he had filed an official complaint with the International Federation of Association Football, demanding an investigation into the performance of the refereeing team. He said that the complaint came due to what he described as gross refereeing errors and double standards, which affected the outcome of the match and contributed to the Egyptian team’s exit from the World Cup.