PRESS RELEASE

Football Association of Serbia sent a letter of complaint to FIFA after biased officiating of German referee Felix Brych in the Group E 2nd round match between Serbia and Switzerland. Numerous reports of leading world media, and especially videos of all disputable situations during the match, were in favour of the fact that a great damage had been done. With a note that we are not clear how the German referee could have been appointed for the match between Switzerland and Serbia, when it is well known that one of Swiss confederation cantons is a German canton, we submitted to FIFA all evidence that clearly pointed out to many omissions.

After detailed analysis of all disputable details in the match, we submitted to FIFA seven videos that clearly showed tendency in officiating of the referee Brych to the detriment of our national team. Submitted videos clearly showed uneven criteria for yellow cards, when most of our key players were shown yellow cards very easily, and it had not been done for the other team for the same or similar situations. The greatest omission refers to failure to award a penalty kick over Mitrovic with score of 1:1 that could change the game in our favour. Penalty kick seen by the whole world, but not by the referee Brych, had to be a matter for VAR analysis.

At this World Cup, VAR has been used in all matches and its advantages have been applied to numerous disputable situations. We are wondering why Serbia is the only team at the World Cup with the referee who would not even check the replay of the disputable situations, and all to the detriment of our team. If the fact that there had been a similar situation in the match with Costa Rica is taken into consideration, as well as the fact that a penalty kick had been awarded to Croatian team for a much smaller offense, in their match with Nigeria, and that had been confirmed by VAR, then there is a genuine question if there are double standards and if VAR has been used on a case-by-case basis.