Spanish FA to launch official complaint

The Spanish FA have decided to lodge an official protest against referee Gamal Ghandour and his two linesmen following their controversial World Cup exit at the hands of South Korea.

The federation's president Angel Maria Villar, who is also a Fifa vice-president, said the match officials had made too many mistakes and robbed Spain of victory.

"I don't think the referees were correct, they made mistakes and if anyone had won, it should have been Spain," Villar told Marca.

"There were a lot of important mistakes like the goals we had disallowed," he said.

"We are going to present an official complaint in which we shall say we were prejudiced by the referee. It will be presented to the Fifa Refereeing Commission, of which I am a member.

"The damage has been done, but we have to stop things like this happening again, so the complaint will be constructive."

The main bone of contention came in golden goal extra-time.

Fernando Morientes scored what would have been the winner only for the assistant referee ruled that the ball had gone out of play before being crossed by Joaquin.

However, replays proved that the ball had not crossed the line.