JUDE BELLINGHAM has joined the chorus of voices criticising the referee after England crashed out the World Cup to France.
Wilton Sampaio has come under fire after his performance in the huge quarter-final clash as the Three Lions’ dreams came to an abrupt end.
Aurélien Tchouaméni and Olivier Giroud scored the goals which left England staring at the defeat.
But after the game Sampaio came under attack from players and pundits for his decision-making.
While Gareth Southgate avoided hitting out at the Brazilian referee, 19-year-old star Bellingham issued a stinging assessment.
The midfielder told ITV: “[Sampaio’s performance was] not great, if I am being honest, not great. Anyone can have a bad game – players and referees – but I think he wasn’t where he should have been in terms of the level for a game like this.
“There are more factors as to why we lost. This definitely isn’t me putting it all on him, [as] we were the ones who played the game. But I don’t think he was at the level tonight.”
His words come after Maguire’s own scathing attack on the ref.
The England defender said: “I can’t really explain his performance – the number of decisions he got wrong was actually incredible. Really poor.”
While pundit and former Three Lions right-back Gary Neville labelled the ref an “absolute joke”.
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England were furious when Dayot Upamecano was judged not to have fouled Bukayo Saka in the build-up to France’s opener.
The Bayern Munich man seemed to clip the 21-year-old’s legs before winning the ball in a passage of play that led to Tchouaméni’s long-range stunner.
Upamecano was also involved in another moment of controversy when he appeared to hack down Harry Kane on the edge of the box.
England were left aggrieved when they received neither a penalty or free-kick for the tackle.
And despite Theo Hernandez appearing to blatantly barge Mason Mount late in the game, Sampaio waved away penalty appeals before overturning his decision when VAR intervened.
The controversial refereeing came only 24 hours Mateu Lahoz dished out a World Cup record amount of yellow cards in Argentina’s feisty clash with Holland.
