Ianis Hagi stunned by VAR penalty call as Rangers star and Romania endure nightmare start to World Cup qualification

A shocked Ianis Hagi could not believe Romania were not awarded a penalty as the kicked off their World Cup 2026 qualifying campaign with a 1-0 home defeat to Bosnia and Herzegovina.

The only goal of the game arrived after just 14 minutes with Holstein’s Kiel’s Armin Gigovic grabbing the all important goal to get Romania off to the worst possible start in Group H on Friday night.

But after coming off the bench as a half-time substitute, Rangers star Hagi and his teammates were left incensed after VAR opted not to award them with a spot kick for handball.

Hagi – who is out of contract at Ibrox at the end of the season – curled a left-footed cross into the box that found its way to the back post.

And after misjudging the flight of the ball, Bosnia midfielder Benjamin Tahirovic saw the ball make contact with his right arm as he tried to leap off the ground and win a header, leaving midfielder Hagi to wave his arms in the air to call for a spot kick.

And despite VAR stepping into review the incident, they recommend that on-field Dutch whistler Danny Makkelie wave play on.

Romania sit join-bottom of Group G with San Marino and know that they will have to beat the minnows on Monday night to get their campaign to reach the finals in North America up and running.

But Hagi, 26, was surprised that VAR didn’t hand his team the chance to level things up from 12 yards against the Bosnians and lamented Romania’s dominance over their opponents without being able to score.

He told AntenaSport: “They had one chance, they scored. We had seven, we didn’t score, that’s the result.

“Any team that has an away advantage does anything, within the limits of fair