THE 2010 World Cup seems destined to be remembered for its big refereeing blunders. Both Sunday’s matches featured refereeing howlers which, it could be argued, altered their results. Was it a coincidence the two sides that were favoured by the decisions both won their matches? They may have been technically better than their opponents, but there is no denying that they were helped by the bad decisions.
If England’s goal had been given by the Uruguayan referee or his assistant – the only two people in the stadium who did not see the ball cross the goal-line – the score would have been 2-2 and England players would not have taken big risks in search of an equaliser that led to them conceding another two goals. In the evening game, Argentina’s first goal was scored from an offside position – the scorer was not marginally offside, but blatantly so, and everyone in the stadium saw this in the action replays on the big screen. Had the goal been disallowed, and Mexico not had to chase a goal, we may have had a different result.
There were other errors committed in South Africa. During the group stages, the US had a perfectly good goal, scored against Slovenia, disallowed for reasons that remain unknown. A Brazil forward used his arm twice to control the ball before scoring, but neither the referee nor the assistant saw this and the goal was allowed to stand. Matters are made worse by the fact that within seconds the blunders are exposed on the action replays shown on the big screens in the stadiums. How can the referee be relied on to perform his job adequately, for the rest of the match, knowing that he had wronged one of the sides?
This is why the world governing body of football, FIFA should stop resisting the calls for the introduction of video technology, which has worked very well in rugby union and tennis. Why should football not protect itself from human error which, ultimately, could destroy the reputation of the game? FIFA chairman Sepp Blatter’s arguments that video technology would undermine refs and kill the element of the unexpected in matches are very thin. The game is capable of producing plenty of incident and drama without the need for refereeing blunders which only throw its integrity into question. As for the referees, assuming that their aim is to be as fair as possible, they would welcome help from a fourth official monitoring the action on a screen.
FIFA does not have any strong argument against video technology, as an aid to the ref, and should give the matter serious consideration. As two academics, wrote in an article on this page last week, FIFA “must act boldly to minimise the most egregious and avoidable errors, and therefore preserve the game’s integrity.” The fans do not pay to watch a blundering referee decide a match result.
