Is the World Cup ‘rigged’ for Argentina? Inside six moments that debunk FIFA bias narrative

As Lionel Messi goes for his second straight FIFA World Cup championship, not everyone is thrilled about Argentina's run to the tournament's title match.

Argentina have been given a healthy amount of fortunate breaks during the tournament that have aided their journey to the finish line. The Albiceleste have not exactly been convincing throughout their trip through the competition, as they have not led in the 90th minute of any of their four knockout games thus far.

The Sporting News explains why Messi's side have been dubbed "VARgentina" at this tournament and runs through the five biggest moments in 2026 that have fans up in arms and conspiracy theories flying.

All key moments favoring Argentina at the 2026 World Cup

Messi no-call vs. Algeria

The first kind whistle that Argentina got in the 2026 FIFA World Cup came in their opening match, as the referee crew was heavily criticized when Lionel Messi got away without any punishment for raking the back of Algeria captain Aissa Mandi's ankle.

No card — yellow or red — was shown on the field by referee Szymon Marciniak, and the VAR official did not intervene.

The moment was controversial for sure, but not everyone believed that Messi got away with one. On the freeze frame, the incident looks quite bad, but when played at full speed, it's evident that Messi appears to pull out of the tackle, meaning he does not use excessive force or brutality.

Still, the perception is that Messi escaped with a friendly whistle for a decision some believe should have left Argentina down a man in this match and with their best player suspended for the next match as well.

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Soft knockout stage path

Once they got through the group stage, Argentina's knockout stage pathway was exceedingly soft. It was considered by many to be the easiest pathway to the final of any top team in the tournament.

Argentina's quadrant of the bracket featured the following teams (eventual opponents in bold): Cape Verde, Australia, Egypt, Switzerland, Algeria, Colombia, and Ghana, meaning they did not have to face any top-10 ranked teams until the semifinals. To make matters worse, Colombia were upset by Switzerland, meaning the highest ranked possible opponent in the quadrant was eliminated.

It felt as though FIFA had set up the bracket in Argentina's favor, even if much of this was thanks to luck of the draw. The draw was determined six months ago, and they benefitted from group stage results that FIFA had no control over. In fact, had things shaken out slightly differently in the final round of group stage action, they may have had to face Belgium in the Round of 16 instead of Egypt.

Disallowed goal vs. Egypt

In the Round of 16, Argentina were coming off a difficult Round of 32 win over Cape Verde, where they were challenged by an inferior opponent and stretched to the brink, winning in extra time. They were tested again in their second knockout game, pushed by Egypt to the very end.

The African side was already up 1-0, and they put the ball in the back of the net again for a 2-0 lead through Zico, who struck on the counterattack. Unfortunately for Egypt, VAR intervened and negated the goal, pulling it back for a very soft foul that occurred very early in the buildup.

It felt against the spirit of the rule for sure, but the call was, by the book, correct.

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Breel Embolo red card vs. Switzerland

In their quarterfinal matchup against Switzerland, there was a highly controversial decision that gave Argentina a major advantage for a critical portion of the game.

With the match 1-1 past the hour mark, as Dan Ndoye leveled the score in the 67th minute, Breel Embolo seemed to have drawn a relatively elementary booking for Leandro Paredes who dropped the Switzerland striker. However, on review, it was quite clear that Embolo dove.

Under the new and highly controversial mistaken identity rules, VAR had the authority to review the play, and Embolo was sent off for a second yellow card.

While the decision was quite clearly correct, the ability for VAR to overstep and re-referee the game was considered extremely controversial. "Mistaken identity" was largely meant to keep yellow cards from being given to the wrong player, not used as a loophole to reverse objective decisions on the field.

Semifinal referee assignment

Ahead of their semifinal against England, it was perceived that the referee assigned to officiate the match, American official Ismael Elfath, was dubbed "Messi's favorite referee."

Because Messi had won all six games refereed by Elfath at the club level, fans believed this was an attempt by FIFA to give Argentina a favorable whistle.

In truth, this was a completely baseless argument. Messi's club team Inter Miami wins a lot, so their strong record with Elfath on the field was indeed an outlier, but nothing remotely suggesting favoritism in a small sample size.

Falkland Islands banner

Following their comeback victory over England, some key Argentina players, including Lionel Messi, unveiled a banner that read "Las Malvinas Son Argentinas" which translates in English to "The Falklands are Argentine."

FIFA typically rejects any signage or other displays of political activism of any kind, attempting to remain as neutral and politics-free as possible.

In fact, there is plenty of precedent for FIFA intervention in these kind of situations. Argentina themselves were fined by FIFA after holding up a banner with the same slogan after a friendly against Slovenia in 2014. In 2018, Granit Xhaka and Xherdan Shaqiri were both fined by UEFA for celebrating goals in a friendly against Serbia by making hand signals that referenced the Albanian flag.

More seriously, Spain players Rodri and Alvaro Morata were suspended one match by UEFA in 2024 after singing about their country's claim to Gibraltar following their triumph in the tournament's final.

However, Argentina did not face any sporting sanction prior to the World Cup final, although they still could face a fine after the tournament.