FIFA World Cup 2010: Controversial Refereeing Decisions
The 2010 FIFA World Cup has come to an end with Spain winning the final match of the tournament but as far as the quality of refereeing during the tournament is concerned, the officials and their decisions have left a bad taste in the mouth after their despicable performances.
It is now time to discuss some of the controversial refereeing decisions, some of them led towards teams getting eliminated or players getting suspended. It should be noted there have been calls before the tournament even began to introduce technology into the game, so that the amount of risk related to the occurrence of human error is reduced but FIFA did not pay heed to such suggestions.
The first controversial decision came in the group stage match between Serbia and Germany. Germany had began the tournament in flying colors by beating Australia. In their second match against Serbia, Alberto Undiano was the referee.
Alberto brandished a total of nine yellow cards in the match, two of which were given to Miroslav Klose for rather debatable challenges. The match seemed like a deliberate attempt by the official to turn football into a non-contact support. The two yellow cards which were shown to Miroslav Klose meant that he was sent off in only the 37th minute of the match.
During the June 18th tie between U.S.A and Slovenia, another refereeing disaster took place. U.S.A went down by two goals in the first half of the match as Slovenia totally outplayed the men in stars and stripes. In the second half, U.S.A came out and played like a team possessed. They managed to play their way back into the game after they scored their second goal through Michael Bradley.
Moments after U.S.A had equalized, their player Maurice Edu put the ball again into the Slovenian net only to have the goal disallowed for no good reason by the Malian referee Koman Coulibaly. U.S.A were infuriated and their anger was justified after the replays showed that the goal was indeed legitimate. Koman Coulibaly was relieved of World Cup duty by FIFA after international criticism for his performance.
Arguably the most blatantly absurd piece of officiating by the referees came in the England versus Germany match, when Frank Lampard’s phantom goal was not accepted by the referee. In the quarter final tie between both the rivals, Germany went two goals up in the first half’s opening minutes. England got a goal back after Mathew Upson scored for them through a header.
England pushed on in search of an equalizer and almost grabbed one after Frank Lampard chipped the German goalkeeper. The ball struck the crossbar and went into the goal but spun back out because of the top spin on it. The referee and the linesman failed to see this incident and the English were denied their equalizer.
In the second half, English tried to attack but were picked off on the counter attack by the Germans, who ended up as eventual winners. In the second quarter final of the day, referees again embarrassed themselves with another shambolic decision. In the Mexico versus Argentina match, the linesman failed to spot Carlos Tevez’s offside position when Lionel Messi’s pass was played.
As a consequence, Tevez scored for the Argentineans and they went onto build on their lead by further two more goals in the latter stages of the match. During the half-time break, Mexican players infuriated by the mistake confronted the referee only to be stopped by the security staff at the game.
Such mistakes have marred the 2010 FIFA World Cup, football is supposed to be remembered through players and their on-field performances but referees have taken the spot light this time around after this World Cup. FIFA must introduce some changes to combat the increasing number of human errors, a good decision will be to reconsider introduction of technology into the game.
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