The IFF has decided to publish a statement regarding the goal made by team Sweden in the second period of the WFC 2019 final, which was disallowed after goal review.

The IFF referees of the game, Tom Kirjonen and Jyrki Sirkka, have reported the following regarding the video goal review taken at 28:31.

Jyrki Sirkka who, during the game was the referee closest to the goal, saw the situation and had the opinion that the ball didn’t fully cross the goal line, when the ball was on the ground. The situation before and after was very hectic, with a lot of players in the area close to goal. He saw the drop net moving but could not say what had caused this. He signalled ‘No Goal’ and as play continued Sirkka informed to Kirjonen, via the headset, that the game should be stopped during the next possible break and the situation reviewed.

At the next break in play, Tom Kirjonen was the referee to make the video goal review. He checked the situation several times, but he was only concentrating on the incident when the ball was on the ground and if the ball had fully crossed the goal line or not and, based on the video, came to the decision of no-goal. During the video review, he did not check the situation after that, when the ball was moving, lifted up and obviously crossed the goal line, because both of the referees were concentrating on the situation when the ball was still on the ground, as nothing they had seen indicated to anything else.

The IFF believes that the decision by the referees to use the video goal review in this situation was good, however, the execution was not exactly as it should have been. The IFF is continuously reviewing the protocols for the video goal review, and how to develop the process.