“France-Poland, round of 16, to live live and until the last moments on beIN Sports”. It’s fair game. In a trailer for the meeting on Sunday, 4 p.m., between the Blues and Poland, beIN Sports, which broadcasts all the matches of this World Cup at home, took the liberty of addressing this Thursday a small spade at TF1, the only free-to-air broadcaster in France for certain matches.
The day before, when the referee of France-Tunisia had just whistled the end of the match just after the equalizer of Antoine Griezmann at the end of additional time (1-1), TF1 had quickly returned to the antenna and broadcast a long advertising tunnel of almost four minutes. The viewers of beIN Sports were then the only ones to witness the use of VAR to finally have the Frenchman’s goal canceled.
It was not until the resumption of the antenna as part of Denis Brogniart’s Mag, that Grégoire Margotton and Bixente Lizarazu, the commentators sent special, had been able to announce this rebound. And thus formalize the defeat of the Blues against the Tunisians (1-0).
Shortly after, TF1 apologized to its 9M viewers for the confused management of this moment. While in Qatar, the French Federation was putting together a file to lodge a complaint after this recourse to the VAR which should not have been possible because of the re-engagement whistled just before the end of the match by the referee, beIN therefore showed itself to be teasing in its trailer. Even if we can be certain that TF1 will now show great vigilance before returning the antenna. So as not to miss these famous “last moments”.