Norway head coach Stale Solbakken has claimed that England benefited from the ball striking an overhead camera cable before Jude Bellingham scored the equalizer in the World Cup quarter-final.
The incident occurred during a Norway goal-kick in the buildup to the goal.
Replays appeared to show the ball hitting the cable, but FIFA released an official statement asserting that the ball sensor provided no evidence of any contact.
Norway ultimately lost the match 2-1 after extra time. Following the half-time whistle, Solbakken confronted the French referee, Clement Turpin, on the pitch.
According to football regulations, the game should have restarted with a drop ball if a cable had been struck.
Solbakken said the referee told him he did not see the incident and received no message that it happened.
"Since Fifa says that there was no touch, he can’t do anything about it. But the ball fell down straight in front of the bench, so it did.
Everyone saw what happened. I think it’s pretty clear that it did.
It was a strange thing," Solbakken said.
"I can sit here and cry but I don’t want to do that. We have done everything we could – the players have been phenomenal throughout the tournament.
OK it was bizarre but it’s part of football and why it is the best sport in the world because things like that can happen.
We have to accept it," he added.
"It was unlucky for us. The ball fell straight down from the sky, so it takes this direction.
It became a misunderstanding among our players, and it was a bad moment for us. We can’t do anything about that.
I don’t think we will play the game again, so that’s how it is," Solbakken stated.
The overhead wires are used to suspend a robotically controlled camera.
FIFA clarified that the sensor inside the Connected Ball showed no peak in the data while in the air, indicating no change in movement from a wire touch.
England head coach Thomas Tuchel acknowledged he was aware of the speculations.
He noted that the built-in chip is highly sensitive, comparing it to a previous tournament ruling between Croatia and Portugal.
"I heard that, but there’s a chip in the ball and it can tell you if a hair can touch it, as you know from the Croatia-Portugal game," Tuchel said.
He referenced a match where a late Croatia equalizer was disallowed for offside after technology detected the ball had flicked the hair of a teammate before reaching the goalscorer.
