FIFA admits officiating mistakes
From the Sports Desk
Published 6/23/2002 4:01 PM
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The chairman of FIFA's referee committee admitted Sunday that significant mistakes had been made during the World Cup, but the governing body of international soccer still rejects the idea of using instant replay as an officiating aide.
As the World Cup headed into its final week, with only the semifinals and championship game left in the month-long tournament, the officiating at this year's event became the No. 1 topic.
Those semifinals will include South Korea instead of Spain because of obvious blunders made in the officiating of their game Saturday. In addition, South Korea's second-round win over Italy was marred by questionable calls. The United States even had reason to complain after its quarterfinal loss to Germany because a hand ball was not called in the penalty box.
A statement from referee committee chairman Senes Erzik of Turkey was distributed Sunday that read:
"There have been one or two major mistakes which are cause for concern.
"The referees have been very well prepared. But referees are only human and errors can never be entirely discounted. Emotions have bubbled over which is understandable.
"Conspiracy theories crop up in all walks of life and in 99 percent of cases they are unfounded. This one is one of the 99 percent."
Some of the emotional responses from both Italy and Spain included allegations that games against the co-hosting South Korean team had been fixed.
The most obvious missed call was in South Korea's victory over Spain, which came in a penalty shootout after neither side could score a goal in regulation or overtime.
An apparent winning goal for Spain, however, was disallowed when linesman Michael Ragoonath of Trinidad ruled that Joaquin sent his cross to Fernando Morientes after the ball had crossed the end line.
Replays not only showed the ball had not crossed the line, but also showed that Joaquin was between the ball and the linesman, meaning the official called a play he could not see.
FIFA spokesman Keith Cooper said Saturday the use of replays was not being considered.
"That is not on the agenda," he said.
As a protest to the mistake made in Spain's quarterfinal loss, the president of the Spanish Football Federation resigned from his position on FIFA's Referee's Commission.
Angel Maria villar, who is also a vice-president of FIFA, made the announcement less than 24 hours after Spain's exit from the competition. He said he would make a formal protest to FIFA about the standard of officiating during the World Cup.
"I think the referees have made serious errors," he said in an interview with a Spanish sports daily newspaper. "We will be presenting a complaint about the conduct of the officials in which we will explain that we have been negatively affected by their decisions.
"The damage has now been done, but we want to make sure that this sort of thing does not happen again."
While the controversy over the officiating reached its high point Sunday, FIFA announced the referees for the semifinal games.
On Tuesday night, the Germany-South Korean contest will be refereed by Urs Meier of Switzerland. The Brazil-Turkey game Wednesday night will be officiated by Kim Nielsen of Denmark.
upi.com
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