World Cup referee Wilton Pereira Sampaio "did not perform to the level you would expect" during England's quarter-final defeat to France, says former Premier League match official Dermot Gallagher.
The Three Lions crashed out in Qatar after being beaten 2-1 by the world champions. Aurelien Tchouameni opened the scoring after 17 minutes, finishing a move that appeared to include a foul on Bukayo Saka in the build-up.
Twice England were awarded spot kicks, both times after intervention from the Video Assistant Referee, but Harry Kane was only able to convert one as Olivier Giroud's winner sent France through.
A number of England players were left frustrated with Sampaio on the night, with Harry Maguire insisting "a lot of decisions went against us", and Gary Neville describing his performance as "a joke".
Discussing the foul on Saka, Gallagher told Sky Sports: "I think it’s a foul. I don’t think there’s any doubt there’s a foul, you can see it’s a foul.
"If the referee doesn’t see it, the assistant has a perfect view, he’s looking straight at it and is very, very close. If the assistant flagged, everyone would have accepted that decision.
"Then the problem is there is 25 seconds between the incident and the France goal. As we know in the Premier League, VAR would never go back that far. That’s not what VAR is there for."
On the referee’s performance as a whole, Gallagher added: "Whether he was nervous or the occasion got to him, [Sampaio] certainly didn’t perform how you would expect a ref at that level to perform.
"It wasn’t the level of a referee in a World Cup quarter-final. You can’t say he wasn’t at that level but I would say he didn’t produce on the day.
"During the 90 minutes, he didn’t reflect that level. The problems emanated from decisions he didn’t make rather than ones he did make."
