Norway’s head coach, Ståle Solbakken, complained that England had benefited from the ball hitting an overhead cable before Jude Bellingham equalised in the World Cup quarter-final.
Replays appeared to show a Norway goal-kick hitting a cable in the buildup, although Fifa released a statement saying a sensor in the ball showed no evidence it had touched.
Solbakken, whose team lost 2-1 after extra time, confronted the French referee, Clément Turpin, on the pitch after the official had blown for half-time. If a cable had been hit the game should have restarted with a drop ball.
“He said that he didn’t see it himself and that he didn’t get any message that it actually happened,” Solbakken said. “Since Fifa says that there was no touch, he can’t do anything about it. But the ball fell down straight in front of the bench, so it did. Everyone saw what happened. I think it’s pretty clear that it did. it was a strange thing.
“I can sit here and cry but I don’t want to do that. We have done everything we could – the players have been phenomenal throughout the tournament. OK it was bizarre but it’s part of football and why it is the best sport in the world because things like that can happen. We have to accept it.
“It was unlucky for us. The ball fell straight down from the sky, so it takes this direction. It became a misunderstanding among our players, and it was a bad moment for us. We can’t do anything about that. I don’t think we will play the game again, so that’s how it is.”
The cables are used to suspend a robotically controlled camera. Fifa said: “Before England’s goal … the sensor in the Connected Ball showed no peak in the ‘heartbeat of the ball’ when in the air, and therefore no evidence that the ball touched the overhead wire and changed the movement of the ball.”
England’s head coach, Thomas Tuchel, said he was aware of suggestions a cable had been hit. “I heard that, but there’s a chip in the ball and it can tell you if a hair can touch it, as you know from the Croatia-Portugal game.”
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That was a reference to a late Croatia equaliser being ruled out for offside after the ball was found to have flicked the hair of a teammate before reaching the scorer, who had been onside from the initial cross.
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