Ronald Koeman: Football has been ruined

Ronald Koeman expressed his dissatisfaction with the refereeing after the Netherlands were eliminated by England in the semi-finals of EURO 2024.

Ronald Koeman: Football has been ruined

Denzel Dumfries’ foul on Harry Kane

Early this morning, in the semi-finals of EURO 2024, the Netherlands national team faced England at Signal Iduna Park. The Orange storm took an early lead in the 7th minute. However, just 10 minutes later, the Three Lions were awarded a penalty after Denzel Dumfries fouled Harry Kane in the penalty area. Kane himself successfully converted the penalty, equalizing the score 1-1.

Notably, referee Felix Zwayer initially deemed Dumfries’ attempt to block Kane to be valid. However, VAR intervened and overturned the referee’s decision.

In his post-match press conference, Netherlands coach Ronald Koeman claimed that the referee and VAR decisions had ruined football: “It wasn’t a penalty. Denzel Dumfries was just trying to block Harry Kane’s shot. Their legs collided quite naturally. These decisions by the referee and VAR have really contributed to ruining football.

The match should have gone into extra time. However, I am still proud of my players’ performance. They had a great tournament.”

Meanwhile, Dutch captain Virgil van Dijk also spoke sarcastically about referee Felix Zwayer: “I don’t know what to say, I don’t know if I should say anything about this. But I saw the referee go into the tunnel quite quickly after the match, he didn’t even have time to shake our hands. There must be a reason why he ran so fast, right?”