Does a viral video show a referee who officiated the 2026 FIFA World Cup final crying over Argentina's defeat? No, that's not true: That referee retired three years before that game. Social media posts reused a clip from his last match when the emotional response was prompted by the greetings from the players, not by an outcome of a game.
The claim appeared in a post (archived here and here) published on X by @TrollFootball on July 19, 2026. It opened:
Referee when he gave his best but Argentina still ended up losing the final.
This is what the attached 25-second video looked like at the time of writing:
(Image source: post by @TrollFootball on X.)
In the video, the man in the shirt with the FIFA logo covers his head and appears to be trying to hold up tears, but the absence of footage before and after that moment obscured the context.
The post went live on the day of the 2026 FIFA World Cup final (archived here) in which Spain won over Argentina, and the implication was that the referee was not impartial, siding with Argentina.
That referee, however, did not officiate that match.
The viral clip predated it. It had been circulating on social media for three years (archived here).
On June 6, 2023, the clip was part of a longer video (archived here) on the official channel of the Royal Spanish Football Federation on YouTube (the section reused in the post on X begins at the 2:52 mark.) As automatically translated by Chrome, that caption read:
Mateu Lahoz's final hours as a professional referee have left us with images full of emotion and gratitude. The Valencian referee leaves behind 32 years in the profession, including 15 seasons in the First Division, making him the third Spanish referee in history with the most matches officiated (287 games). His international career has taken him to the highest levels, with two World Cups, a European Championship, an Olympic Games, and the 2021 Champions League final between Manchester City and Chelsea. A historic and unparalleled record. This is how he experienced his last match as a professional referee at the Son Moix Stadium in Palma de Mallorca!
(Image source: post by @RFEFutbol on YouTube.)
Roughly half a year before his retirement, Antonio Mateu Lahoz officiated a game between Argentina and the Netherlands during the 2022 World Cup in Qatar, issuing a remarkable 16 yellow cards and one red card (archived here). Among those who complained about the referee was Lionel Messi (archived here) who captained Argentina in 2022, when his team won the world championship (archived here), and in 2026, when it could not defend its title.
