ARE THE REFS RUINING THE WORLD CUP?
22 June 2010
Sport
4 stars
Just when you though there was nothing more horrible than the constant buzzing of the Vuvuzela horns, along come the FIFA refs and their shonky decisions!
We all know that four years ago the Socceroos were done over by Italian divers (seems the Kiwi’s have been given the same treatment in 2010) and some horribly poor reffing decisions. In the German 2006 World Cup, not only did we get screwed over with a false penalty against Italy, but a Croatian player also managed to get three yellow cards in one match against the Aussies.
So four years on, and has anything changed?
It seems the refs are making more bad decisions than Andrew Johns’ mouth, and it’s costing teams’ valuable points in the world’s biggest sporting spectacle.
Harry Kewell received her marching orders against Ghana for a ball he didn’t play at! Against Germany Cahill saw red from the refs after a soft challenge that was a yellow card at best.
Then there was Germany’s game against Serbia which saw the ref ruin a great game and pull out 9 soft yellow cards, two of them going to German striker, Miroslav Klose, who won the golden boot for the most goals scored in the last World Cup.
The Swiss were robbed by Chile and the ref after one of the Chilean players put on an acting performance worthy of an Oscar rather than a World Cup. The result, a red card, and an eventual win to Chile.
The America are complaining after a game winning goal was scored against Slovenia only to have the match ref disallowed the goal, and refused to give an answer as to why he had stopped the play or disallowed the late goal.
With so much riding on these World Cup games, careers, sponsorship, glory, it’s a surprise that so much can still be left up to human error. The technology to review a poor decision quickly and accurately is there, so why not embrace it? With a disallowed goal or red card having such a huge impact on games, it’s time they start getting it right!
FIFA’s head of refereeing Jose-Marcia Garcia-Aranda admits that not all calls have been “not fully correct”, but mistakes were inevitable. "Some of them are not good decisions on the field of play and this for human beings, is natural," he told reporters on Monday. "We are trying to improve those decisions that we consider are not good enough and for that reason we are training every day."
Cahill gets his red!
And one for you Mr Kewell
And the Oscar for best supporting actor goes to...
Cahill talks about Kewell's red card
English keepers stuffed save, Lego style!
