FIFA has issued an official clarification regarding the controversy that arose over the penalty awarded to Switzerland in their match against Qatar, confirming that what occurred was a temporary technical fault in the offside graphics display system, and that it had no effect on the operation of the Video Assistant Referee (VAR) technology or on the referee's decisions during the match.
The statement explained that a brief technical interruption prevented the offside diagram from being generated at the moment preceding the penalty award, before the problem was addressed and swiftly resolved by the technical team responsible for the system.
Switzerland's penalty had been accompanied by suspicions of an offside position at the start of the attack, at a time when the screens did not display the video technology's offside lines.
FIFA stressed that the VAR protocol continued to function normally without any disruption, with footage reviewed according to standard procedures and relying on the technical lines used to determine player positions.
It confirmed that the incident, after review, proved that the attacking player was not in an offside position at any of the stages examined prior to the final decision being made.
FIFA attached to its statement images showing the offside graphics via VAR technology, which were not displayed live at the time of play.
Qatar and Switzerland drew 1-1 in the opening match of their 2026 FIFA World Cup campaigns, after Switzerland took the lead from a penalty before Qatar equalised in stoppage time.