FIFA PRESIDENT APOLOGIZES FOR REFEREES CRUCIAL MISTAKES
By Ronnie Nathanielsz
PhilBoxing.com
Wed, 30 Jun 2010
FIFA president Sepp Blatter has done the only thing he could do at present and that is to apologize to England and Mexican football associations for the two shocking blunders committed by the World Cup referees in two crucial games that sent both England and Mexico crashing out of the quarter final stage.
With Germany leading 2-1 England were deprived of an obvious equalizer when Frank Lampard?s thunderous, long range free kick hit the inside of the crossbar and fell over the line before bouncing back out.
TV replays showed it was clearly a goal but the Uruguayan referee allowed play to continue and despite the anguished cries of the England players and the bench including David Beckham, the referee refused to budge.
The match ended in a humiliating 4-1 defeat that ousted England.
Mexico suffered a somewhat similar fate against Argentina when Carlos Tevez who was offside by a couple of feet at least scored the first goal and despite both the referee and the linesman who didn?t call being surrounded by the Mexican players and later confronted at halftime, the Mexicans were forced to grin and bear it, in the end losing 3-1 to a better team.
The British tabloid The Sun reported that the incident has led to renewed calls for goal-line technology and Blatter admits world football's governing body will look into the matter.
He said: "It is obvious that after the experience so far in this World Cup it would be nonsense to not reopen the file of technology at the business meeting of the International FA Board (IFAB) in July.?
Blatter said "Personally I deplore it when you see evident referee mistakes but it's not the end of a competition or the end of football, this can happen. The only thing I can do is yesterday I have spoken to the two federations ? England and Mexico ? directly concerned by referees mistakes. I have expressed to them apologies and I understand they are not happy and that people are criticizing.?
Realizing that something has to be done the FIFA president said "We will naturally take on board the discussion on technology and have first opportunity in July at the business meeting."
The Sun noted that FIFA had blocked any further experiments with technology at a meeting of the IFAB, the game's rule-making body, in March. Blatter recalled "It happened in 1966 and then 44 years later ? though it was not quite the same.?
Blatter revealed that he had apologized to England and Mexico adding ? The English said 'thank you' and accepted that you can win some and you lose some, while the Mexicans bowed their head and accepted it."
Despite the ongoing debate about bringing the game in line with other sports using technology to rule on controversial decisions, Blatter insists the introduction of video replays is not an option.
He said: "The only principle we are going to bring back for discussion is goal-line technology. Football is a game that never stops and the moment there was a discussion if the ball was in or out, or there was a goal-scoring opportunity, do we give a possibility to a team to call for replays once or twice like in tennis? ?
He pointed out that for situations like the Mexico-Argentina match ?you don't need technology."
The Sun reported that Blatter also revealed that FIFA would launch a new drive to improve refereeing standards at the top level later this year. He said: "We will come out with a new model in November on how to improve high-level referees. We will start with a new concept of how to improve match control.
Click here to view a list of other articles written by Ronnie Nathanielsz.
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