Victor Moses has accused referee Cuneyt Cakir and VAR of robbing Nigeria of a place in the last 16 at the World Cup.
Nigeria lost 2-1 to Argentina on Tuesday as they were eliminted at the group stage by Marcos Rojo’s late winner.
But Moses was left furious after Gernot Rohr’s side didn’t get a second penalty when Rojo headed the ball against his own arm in the area.
The game was tied 1-1 at the time, but after Cakir reviewed the incident as part of the VAR process, the Turkish match official decided not to award the spot-kick.
Captain Mikel John Obiappeared to suggest afterwards that Cakir didn’t give it because Argentina are one of the more fancied teams in the competition and Moses was in agreement.
When asked by Standard Sport if he felt Nigeria missed out because they’re not as big a team as Argentina, he replied: “Yes. Obviously It was (Lionel) Messi’s day! If you look at it again, we all thought it was a penalty.
“He (Cakir) went to have a look at it again just to confirm it and he came back saying it was not a penalty. But if you look at the replay, it was totally a penalty.
“To have VAR you have to get decisions right and if you’re not getting things right, there is no point having it. Then there is also the playing and stopping the game again for two or three minutes, it’s just got to be right.
“It was definitely a penalty. I think the same decision was given in the Iran vs Portugal game. It was totally the same situation. The referee should have given it.”