Global football fans urge referee to retire after disallowing Vietnam women’s legit goal in SEA Games final

The controversy involving Laotian assistant referee Phutsavan Chanthavong and Australian main referee Rebecca Anne Durcau has become a center of discussion on global forums, particularly on Reddit, where threads about the incident attracted hundreds of comments.

In the 29th minute of the SEA Games women’s football final on Wednesday night, Ngan Thi Van Su delivered a cross from the right flank into the penalty area, where Nguyen Thi Bich Thuy headed the ball into the net from close range.

Despite slow-motion replays clearly showing Bich Thuy standing onside, positioned well between the Philippine defenders and approximately 2 m from being offside, the goal was disallowed.

The decision sparked a wave of criticism from the online football community.

A Reddit user wrote: “One of the worst decisions I’ve ever seen. There were four defenders (including the goalkeeper) standing behind her.”

“There was almost a 2-meter difference between the last defender, Hali Long, and the goalscorer, Bich Thuy,” another commented.

The debate shifted to the cause of the error, with opinions split between professional incompetence and foul play.

One user questioned: “How could you think of anything other than match-fixing when you see that?”

Others, however, leaned toward human error. One fan wrote: “Clearly, this is a professional error,” while another offered a technical explanation: “The linesman was looking at the player who passed the ball, not the player who scored at the time of the pass.”

Another user replied to the explanation: “If that’s really the case, this referee shouldn’t officiate another match. As a FIFA referee, that call was not logical at all.”

A screenshot showed that Nguyen Thi Bich Thuy was about 2 m from the offside line when she received the ball to score for Vietnam, but her goal was disallowed in the match against the Philippines at the SEA Games 33 women’s football final in Chonburi, Thailand on Dec. 17, 2025.

A fan from the Philippines didn’t think there was a motive for match-fixing here, since football is not the most popular sport in the country.

“I don’t know who would pay to fix a match for a Philippine football team. Perhaps this was just simply incompetence,” this user wrote.

Assistant referee Chanthavong has been a FIFA official since 2019 and is the only female FIFA assistant referee from Laos. Following the blunder, many fans are urging the world football governing body to take action.

“This referee has a FIFA badge, so they need to be supervised,” one commented, while another demanded that FIFA strip someone of their badge for making a mistake.

The incident has reignited calls for Video Assistant Referee (VAR) technology at the SEA Games. While sports like sepak takraw, volleyball and futsal utilized video reviews at the Games, football, the event’s most popular sport, did not.

“Is VAR really worse than this?” asked a fan. “In any case, a suitable VAR system is better than none.”

Notably, in the men’s opening match between Vietnam and Laos, the main referee overturned an offside goal of Nguyen Dinh Bac. Such an intervention did not happen in the game on Wednesday.

The disallowed goal proved decisive. After a 0-0 draw in 120 minutes, the Philippines triumphed 6-5 in the penalty shootout to claim their first-ever SEA Games gold medal, denying coach Mai Duc Chung’s team a fifth consecutive gold.

The referee stole Bich Thuy’s goal