He’s coming home! Spanish referee Antonio Miguel Mateu Lahoz sent home after refereeing disasterclass

You all may have heard of the FIFA World Cup quarterfinal match between Argentina and the Netherlands. The match was marred by a total mess by Spanish referee Antonio Miguel Mateu Lahoz who handled things like he was holding a hot pot barehanded (Bayern Munich are no strangers to dealing with terrible officiating).

Lahoz was not afraid to brandish cards as there were 15 given, of which two of the 14 yellows resulted in a red for Dutch wingback Denzel Dumfries in the 128^th minute. The last time that many cards were shown was in the 2002 World Cup game between Germany and Cameroon (12 yellows and two reds).

FIFA apparently have seen enough as they have sent Lahoz home and will not officiate games at the World Cup:

Paris Saint-Germain star Lionel Messi handled the ball deliberately but was not booked, and afterwards was booked for dissent when he should’ve gotten a yellow-red had his handball constituted a booking. Juventus midfielder Leandro Paredes also got away with a bad tackle on Manchester City defender Nathan Aké and was only booked because the Argentinian threw a ball at the Dutch bench in anger. In short, Lahoz failed to call fouls worthy of a booking and therefore allowed Argentina to get away with their dirty play.

JTobolt covered more about the controversies surrounding the officiating at the World Cup which you can find in the related story below.