France full-back Theo Hernandez was spared a red card in their World Cup semi-final triumph over England due to an officiating loophole, it has emerged.
The reigning world champions advanced into the final four of the tournament courtesy of a 2-1 win over Gareth Southgate's side - but it was very nearly a completely different story after Hernandez sent Mason Mount sprawling inside the penalty area in the final minutes of the game.
Brazilian referee Wilton Sampaio eventually awarded England a spot-kick following a VAR intervention, but Harry Kane blazed his effort from 12 yards over the crossbar. Kane had earlier scored from the spot to cancel out Aurelien Tchouameni's opener. Former Arsenal and Chelsea striker Olivier Giroud powered home a header in the 78th minute to break English hearts.
England players were left astounded after the incident involving Hernandez and Mount, with the former only cautioned by Sampaio even though he was the last defender and appeared to deny Mount a clear goalscoring opportunity.
But former Premier League referee Peter Walton explained that Sampaio's decision was correct - purely because Mount was not actually in possession of the ball when he was fouled, so, technically, Hernandez had not denied him a clear goalscoring opportunity.
When he was asked why Hernandez was only booked following the incident, Walton told ITV : "It would be a fair question if he denied a goalscoring opportunity, unfortunately for England the player [Mount] does not have possession of the ball, therefore it wouldn’t be the denial of a goalscoring opportunity."
Regardless of whether or not he made the right call, Sampaio still came in for some fierce criticism from former England full-back Gary Neville after the match, with the ITV pundit claiming that the match official was "an absolute joke".
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Neville said: “The referee had a nightmare game, an absolute joke of a referee. I’m not saying that was all down to England’s defeat because that’s making excuses. He was just a bad referee, rank bad.”
But France midfielder Adrien Rabiot had a different take: while he admitted that Sampaio was hit and miss, he was baffled that the referee's initial decision over England's second penalty was overturned and insisted that he wasn't convinced the coming together in the box warranted a penalty.
Speaking after the match, Rabiot said: "First of all, I'm not sure that it's really a foul. We've seen hundreds of actions like that that aren't given."
"I thought the refereeing was a bit borderline at times tonight, but we won't linger on that. Of course, when he missed, we were happy, it was justice because there was no penalty. But sometimes you also need that bit of luck, of success. We had it tonight, everything came together. We are really proud to reach the semi-final in this way."
