The Hindu : Controversial referees out of the final roster

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Friday, Jun 21, 2002

Sport

Sport - Football

Controversial referees out of the final roster

SEOUL JUNE 20. The four referees involved in the most controversial incidents of the 2002 World Cup have been cut from the roster.

FIFA's referee's committee decided on Thursday not to retain Ecuador's Byron Moreno, condemned by Italy after its shock defeat to South Korea; Argentina's Angel Sanchez, punched in the Portugal-Korean Group match; Vitor Melo Pereira who missed a hand ball in the USA-Mexico showdown; and Kim Young-Joo, criticised after Brazil beat Turkey.

Altogether 16 of the original 32 referees named for the tournament have been released. Moreno has come under an onslaught of criticism after Italy was sent packing by a Korean `golden goal.'

Moreno has been branded `public enemy number one' in Italy after he sent off Francesco Totti. Italian coach Giovanni Trapattoni had no doubt that Moreno was to be blamed for his side's shock loss.

``Everyone saw the match,'' he said. ``We were penalised. I don't understand why we had to become a victim of bad decision making.'' So severe has been the attacks levelled against Moreno, that newspapers in Quito have leapt to his defence.

``Byron Moreno did his job,'' said the editorial in the morning daily El Universo. ``Firm and calm-headed, Moreno showed perfect knowledge of the game's 17 rules and prevented any outbreak of violence on the pitch.''

Another newspaper, El Comercio, said: ``Moreno ran all over the place and had a good view of the whole match. The quality of Moreno's refereeing fully came to light when he sent off Francesco Totti."

Sanchez has paid the price for talking out of line. After being punched in the stomach by Joao Pinto when he sent him off, Sanchez, instead of simply putting it all in his report, went public.

``Joao Pinto punched me in the stomach, on the left side just under the ribs,'' Sanchez told a Portuguese radio station.

Sanchez added that Joao Pinto, along with Figo and former Portugese great Eusebio, came into his changing room after the match to apologise but not `to repent.' FIFA was not amused.

``We were quite taken by surprise that the referee spoke to the press before the disciplinary committee heard the case,'' said FIFA spokesman Keith Cooper. It spelt the death knell for Sanchez.

Kim, the first South Korean to referee a World Cup match, was forced onto the defensive after sending off two Turkish players and missing a blatant act of the kind of cheating FIFA has said it aims to stop.

Kim failed to spot Brazilian star Rivaldo feigning injury at the end of the Group `C' game, which Brazil won 2-1 after Kim awarded a penalty that also proved controversial. ``I did my best to perform my duty fairly and impartially,'' Kim said.

Pereira's offence in the US' shock 2-0 win over Mexico was to miss a blatant handball by American defender John O'Brien. Mexico appealed in vain for a penalty when O'Brien used a fist to prevent the ball reaching Cuauhtemoc Blanco's head but Portuguese referee Vitor Melo Pereira never saw it.

But television spotted it, and replayed the blunder again and again. FIFA has insisted that the overall standards of refereeing in this World Cup have been satisfactory.

But some are more satisfactory than others and for 16 referees, their dreams of taking charge of a World Cup final have been dashed.

Blatter blasts linesmen

Meanwhile, labelling linesmen ``a disaster,'' the FIFA president, Sepp Blatter, said in an interview published on Thursday that he would propose changes in the selection, training and designation of match officials for future editions of the competition.

In the interview with Milan daily Gazzetta dello Sport, Mr. Blatter also said certain refereeing decisions against Italy at the World Cup caused him to ``suffer deeply.''

``Obviously the dozens of competitions staged by FIFA over the last four years have been insufficient to `break in' the referees and linesmen. The former have been quite good, the latter a disaster, especially on calling offsides,'' Mr. Blatter was quoted as saying.

Much of Italy's media, including Gazzetta dello Sport, the country's top-selling sports newspaper, have cried foul against what they said was a FIFA conspiracy against the `Azzurri'.

Mr. Blatter denied any conspiracy but conceded several dubious decisions had damaged the Italians. ``Unfortunately, through exceptional circumstances and coincidences, numerous and consecutive errors were concentrated on the Italian team,'' Blatter said in the interview.

Looking ahead at the coming quarterfinal games, Mr. Blatter said linesmen should follow the ``in doubt don't raise the flag'' rule. Disallowing a legitimate goal was worse than allowing an offside one, he said.

Mr. Blatter also said several changes were needed which he would propose at a FIFA executive meeting on June 27. These, he said, included ensuring that the referee and the two linesmen come form the same country to avoid communication problems which he said had produced ``uncertainty and errors'' at this World Cup.

Also, more must be done to recruit former players to act as referees because they were physically fitter and had a better ``feeling'' for the game, he said. — AFP & AP

Send this article to Friends by E-Mail

Sport