Gary Neville Calls Out FIFA 'Dictatorship' After World Cup Incident

Hal picked up his MA in Sports Journalism and NCTJ qualification from St Mary's University Twickenham, Hal has since been part of Valnet since late 2021.

He started as a freelance football writer for This Is Futbol and carried that on over to FootballFanCast before becoming their social media editor. He now works as an editor for GiveMeSport, predominantly focusing on Premier League, Champions League, and English football.

He also helps GiveMeSport cover other major sports such as MMA, boxing, darts, tennis, and golf. Key events like the summer and winter Olympics are also highlights when they appear on the sporting calendar.

Hal is an Arsenal and Three Lions fan, but keeps an eye on the All Blacks, his favourite rugby team, having grown up in New Zealand. Sign in to your GiveMeSport account Up to this point at the 2026 World Cup, most of the controversies have come off the pitch. Indeed, plenty of headlines have been made about Gianni Infantino and the way he runs FIFA.

Under his watch, the United States have made it extremely difficult for fans, staff members, journalists, officials and even players to come into the co-hosting nation. Most infamously, Somali referee Omar Artan was sent home from Miami, despite having a visa to do his job this summer.

Thankfully, the action in the group stages of the World Cup so far has largely gone smoothly (albeit with some notably empty seats in certain matches, likely due to costly ticket prices). However, there was one controversial incident during the 1-1 draw between Qatar and Switzerland in Group B.

Switzerland took the lead via a penalty in the 17th minute, converted by Breel Embolo, but could not hang onto the points, with Qatar levelling thanks to an own goal from Miro Muheim in the 94th minute. While the Swiss would have felt robbed to concede so late, having dominated the game, there were plenty of question marks regarding their goal.

The penalty was awarded after Remo Freuler was bundled over by Qatar goalkeeper Mahmoud Abunada. The contact was obvious, and the referee quickly pointed ot the spot. However, replays appeared to show the Swiss player standing in an offside position before he pounced onto the ball to win the foul.

Despite this, VAR checked and cleared the penalty, allowing Embolo to put Switzerland in front from 12 yards. The incident sparked a strong reaction, with English pundit Gary Neville leading the dissenting voices.

The Manchester United legend questioned FIFA on ITV as there were also no alternative angles of the incident shown on the live broadcast. As quoted by the Daily Mail, Neville even called the organisation a 'dictatorship', saying:

"We all think it here and everybody will think it at home [that it was offside]. FIFA are the host broadcaster. They've got the evidence of the automatic decision which they can show us.

"Why are they not showing us? They did this in the last tournament. Fans are already distrusting of FIFA and technology to start with. There is a massive question mark over that because that is offside in my eyes until they prove differently.

"Why aren't FIFA showing us when there's already such distrust for them? It's a dictatorship this: the idea that they hold this data internally and not show fans, it's absolutely ridiculous."

Fellow pundits Ian Wright and Duncan Ferguson, who were sat alongside Neville in the ITV studio, also agreed that Freuler looked offside to the naked eye. Adding to that, former England defender Lee Dixon, who was commentating on the game, insisted it would be ruled out:

"There's no doubt about the penalty but he's offside. This won't count."

It didn't take long for VAR controversy to arrive at the 2026 World Cup.

In response to the controversy, FIFA have now shared a statement online, with images, as they defended the offside decision. It's interesting to note that they claimed the usual supporting animation graphic was not shown due to a 'technical outage', although they add that this did not have an impact on the call:

"During the Qatar vs. Switzerland match in the San Francisco Bay Area, a brief technical outage prevented the onside animation graphic from being generated ahead of the penalty awarded to Switzerland in the 14th minute. The issue was quickly resolved.

"The workflow of the VAR was not affected by this issue and followed the normal procedure in checking the on-field decision. The lines used by the VAR to check the position of the relevant players did not show the attacking player to be in an offside position in either of the two situations immediately before the penalty decision."

Some fans have questioned just how helpful the supporting images actually are, as they feel as if they simply prove that Freuler was offside, despite FIFA's claims.