Raja Casablanca coach Ricardo Sa Pinto cries foul over disallowed goal

This comes in the wake of the North Africans being denied an equaliser against Mamelodi Sundowns as they went on to lose 1-0 at Loftus Versfeld on Sunday.

Sa Pinto said he could not understand why VAR is only implemented in the knockout phase of the competition. 

"In my opinion, the way I see it from TV, it's a clear goal of Sabir [Bougrine], even if one player is offside, the cross is direct in my opinion, we can shake after," said Sa Pinto.

"But at this level, when we are playing Champions League of Africa, we need to have VAR. We are playing for too much for our team, we are playing for too much for everybody.

"So it's important in these situations that it's clear when it's not a goal or when it's a goal, and unfortunately we don't have VAR, in my opinion it's a goal, it's 1-1, and we don't know if we can score a second or not.

"But, for me, in the final [score] it was the right result, and unfortunately we lost and we lost three points."

The Portuguese-born mentor argued his view was not only because Raja had suffered a defeat, which affects their log position in Group B after three games, but looking at the bigger picture. 

"Like I said, in my opinion, what I see is clearly a goal – the player, in my opinion, doesn't interfere with play, Sabir is two metres behind the ball and scored a legal goal.

"What I want is not for me, I want it for everybody [because] I think at this level, everybody in the Champions League deserves the truth of the game, and I think it's important.

"At this level you need to have VAR in all the games, not only in the quarter-finals but in the group stage, it's important for everybody.

"If we are trying to find a more serious and more honest football in the whole competition, we can't split the group stage and quarter-finals, we have to be serious and do all the matches, in my opinion."

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