Thursday 4 July 2019 11:56, UK
Argentina's football federation has made a formal complaint to CONMEBOL criticising the standard of refereeing during their 2-0 defeat to Brazil in the Copa America semi-final.
Argentina claim they were "clearly harmed" by the decisions of Ecuadorean referee Roddy Zambrano during the loss to bitter rivals Brazil.
In a six-page letter to the South American confederation, Argentina complained that VAR was not used to check two decisions that could have lead to penalties for fouls on Sergio Aguero and Nicolas Otamendi.
Aguero appeared to be fouled by Dani Alves during the game, and Argentina were unhappy after no penalty was awarded when Otamendi went down in the box following a challenge from Arthur.
Brazil won the game 2-0 thanks to goals from Gabriel Jesus and Roberto Firmino, and following the game Argentina forward Lionel Messi blamed the defeat on the performance of Zambranol.
Messi said: "They were not better than us. They found the net early and the second goal came from a penalty they didn't award.
"The officiating was crazy. There were clear penalties, on [Nicolas] Otamendi, on 'Kun' [Aguero].
"[The referee] was on their side. In every divided ball or dispute, he inclined the pitch their way.
"It's not an excuse, but the truth is that, in this Copa, they kept on blowing for stupid things, for handballs, penalties. But today, they didn't even go to VAR when there were clear plays that should have been looked at."
