France is mourning after losing the World Cup final – and is showing itself to be a bad loser. “L’Équipe” accuses the referee of complicity. An Argentinian has had enough and strikes back: he humiliates the defeated opponent by means of a petition.
First the lost World Cup final against Argentina, now another humiliation: An online petition demands: “France, stop crying”. By Sunday afternoon, more than 680,000 people had signed the appeal on the Change.org petition platform. With a million signatures, this would become one of the most signed petitions there.
Argentinian Valentin Gomez initiated the petition. “Since we won the World Cup final, the French have not stopped crying, whining and not accepting that Argentina are world champions. The request is that the French stop crying and accept that Messi is the best in the history of the football and has Mbappé as his son,” he said.
After the spectacular and dramatic final, which France lost on penalties (7:5 on penalties), the French “L’Équipe” focused their criticism on the Polish referee Szymon Marciniak. Lionel Messi’s goal to make it 3-2 in injury time is said to have been irregular. Two Argentinian substitutes were on the field before the ball landed in the goal. Referee Marciniak rejected the allegations. At a press conference, he showed the scene at Mbappé’s 3: 3 – and used his cell phone to prove that substitute players had already run onto the field.
Marciniak had been widely praised for his performance in the Qatar final. However, more than 200,000 French fans then signed a petition demanding that the final be repeated because of the alleged mistake.