Croatia coach Zlatko Dalić has hit out at FIFA in a candid television interview with HRT, claiming the sport’s governing body has a vested interest in keeping Croatia away from the latter stages of the World Cup.
Speaking on HRT’s Americana program, Dalić reflected on the controversial round of 32 defeat to Portugal and did not hold back when addressing what he believes is a systematic bias against the Croatia national team.
“Look at that match — four or five fouls on Budimir, all in the same way, their center-back grabbing him with his hands and bringing him down, and none of them were given,” Dalić said. “No penalty is called, then VAR gets involved. Vlašić wasn’t pulling anyone; he simply used his arms to shield the Portugal player. There was no intensity there that warranted a penalty, and I am convinced that if it weren’t for the narrative surrounding Croatia, they wouldn’t have even looked at it.”
Dalić went further, pointing to a pattern he claims to have been highlighting for years. “I’ve been saying this for several years now — drawing attention to Croatia’s status within FIFA — and I haven’t received any support for it. But now, with all of these decisions, the red card, everything taken together, it vindicates what I have been saying all along. And you know that I was the only national team coach in the world who refused to vote in the FIFA awards for several years. That was my form of protest. And even that wasn’t received particularly well.”
The Croatia coach then made his most striking claim. “We bother them. We have ruined their party twice, and there was no chance they were going to let us anywhere near it a third time. That is simply how it is. I will say this: we had to get through the group stage and through Portugal, and we didn’t, and that is on us. But we are definitely not welcome there, and they will not allow Croatia to write that story a third time in a row.”
Croatia was eliminated in dramatic and deeply controversial circumstances in stoppage time against Portugal. The Vatreni appeared to have leveled at 2-2 in the 13th minute of added time, only for the goal to be disallowed after the sensor inside the ball detected that Igor Matanović had touched the ball on its way to Mario Pašalić, who was in an offside position.
