{"id":3376,"date":"2026-06-15T13:08:39","date_gmt":"2026-06-15T13:08:39","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/?p=3376"},"modified":"2026-06-15T13:08:39","modified_gmt":"2026-06-15T13:08:39","slug":"world-cup-2026-fifa-seeks-explanation-over-var-officials-hand-gesture","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/?p=3376","title":{"rendered":"World Cup 2026: Fifa seeks explanation over VAR official&#8217;s hand gesture"},"content":{"rendered":"<p> <br \/>\n<\/p>\n<div>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\"><b class=\"ssrcss-1xjjfut-BoldText e5tfeyi3\">Fifa is seeking an explanation over a hand gesture made by video assistant referee Shaun Evans before Germany&#8217;s 7-1 win over Curacao on Sunday.<\/b><\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Before matches during the World Cup, Fifa has been briefly focusing on the officials as part of its world feed global coverage.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">First, the referee, and the rest of his team, have walked to the touchline and a graphic has been displayed with their names and roles.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Then the picture has cut to a shot of the VAR team at the referee hub in Dallas.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Rather than showing them at work and looking at their monitors, they have also briefly posed for the camera and their names have appeared on screen.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">When the camera cut to the VAR room on Sunday, Evans was standing with his arm by his side &#8211; and then could be seen making the fingers of his right hand into a upside down &#8216;OK&#8217; sign.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Such a gesture has two very distinct meanings \u2013 one harmless and the other connected to an expression of white supremacy.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The incident was immediately subject to a huge amount of speculation on social media.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">BBC Sport has approached Fifa multiple times for comment or some clarity but as yet there has been no official response.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">However, BBC Sport has been told by sources that Fifa is looking for answers from the Australian VAR official.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Whatever the outcome, there was a noticeable change in approach for pre-match rituals after the Germany-Curacao game.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">When the VAR hub was shown in three subsequent matches, the officials were already facing the monitors. No longer did we see them looking at the camera, although their names were still displayed.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Fifa is seeking an explanation over a hand gesture made by video assistant referee Shaun Evans before Germany&#8217;s 7-1 win&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":3377,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3376","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-sport"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3376","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3376"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3376\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/3377"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3376"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3376"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/racingsport.xyz\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3376"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}