by Wayne Reeves

Created on: June 30, 2010

The 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa, has had some good matches and some inevitable controversy of one sort or another since its June 11th kick-off.  As seems with all World Cups, the refereeing teams are under scrutiny for every decision and non-decision they whistle or flag for.

One of the biggest mistakes of the tournament has to be on the failure of acknowledging England’s apparent goal in their 4-1 defeat to Germany in the second round.  Referee Jorge Larrionda, waved play on after Frank Lampard’s floated chip-shot bounced off the crossbar, down over the goal-line and then up and down on the goal-line for German goalkeeper Manuel Neuer to grab and keep playing.

This was an obvious goal to which the referee, and two sideline officials all missed.  Germany were leading 2-1 at the time, the goal may have been a pivotal moment.  The way the match unfolded was probably never in doubt though; Germany cruised to a well-deserved win in the end.

Calls for goal-line technology, or at the very least, some form of intervention for dubious calls should be available for crucial game-changing moments.  

It isn’t just goals which are missed, even player-on-player fouls and non-fouls are duping the referees consistently.  The sending-off of Brazilian star Kaka, in his team’s second group-stage game versus the Ivory Coast, was a farce.  Kaka had earlier received a yellow card, it wasn’t until the premeditated actions of Kader Keita, running at Kaka directly (without anything relating to the ball) things turned unsavoury.  

Kaka reacted to the deliberate contact by raising his shoulder at Keita, while still keeping an eye on the ball downfield, Keita then jerked backwards from Kaka, clutching his face as though he was punched violently.  The referee (Stephane Lannoy) was not aware of the incident, after much player aggravation, Lannoy showed Kaka a second yellow card and he was off, through no fault of his own.

There are also many other incidents which are as unwelcome in any World Cup, most notably diving.  On too many occasions the referees are halting the flow of play for supposed fouls when little or no contact is apparent.  In their defence, many TV commentators and viewers have the benefit of replay, whereas a referee has to make a split-second decision on the field of play.

More needs to be done on educating the referees to the tricks players will do to win decisions in their favour; if they still referee on the basis all players are playing fair then they are open to deception at every opportunity.

At this time, standards vary greatly, a good example of wise officiating was the recent second round match between Spain and Portugal.  Ronaldo, the skilled and exciting star and captain of Portugal, has an annoying habit of going down easy on any challenge made on him in most games.  His reputation precedes him now; it was clearly apparent the referee in that game (Hector Baldassi) was not going to be swayed into awarding generous free-kicks in Portugal’s favour each time Ronaldo hit the floor.

Intelligent officiating needs to be encouraged, FIFA should emphasise to all referees to judge accordingly, depending on the teams involved, not all fouls are genuine and gamesmanship (cheating) is always a threat to many games.  Needless yellow and red cards, missed goals and incidents spoil some good games; sensible refereeing which keeps the game moving as much as possible is what fans really want to see.

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