Editor’s Note: A friend of mine used to say: “Soccer is a game of opinions.” He would then go on to select his world-class team of players who had been dumped by one coach or another. Bob Evans gives us his very interesting opinion on the World Cup refereeing in Japan and Korea in this article. While we might not agree with everything in there, we defend Bob’s right to express his views.
You didn’t have to be watching the World Cup for very long before you saw some strange refereeing and lining. Mysterious penalties here, inexplicable cards there, and then that weird call on the goal-line in favor of Korea, had to make you wonder how those blokes were selected to officiate the best national teams in the world in the grandest and most-watched sporting spectacle on the planet. I’m tempted to spout my usual response, the one I give when people complain about referees: “Look, it’s a human game full of human errors. Some by players, some by coaches, and some by referees. But, when it comes down to it, referees affect the game no more than players affect the game.”
I’m tempted to, but this time I can’t, because I know a little too much about what went on in Korea and Japan, and what went on in the months before the World Cup Finals kicked off. But let me back up a minute, to that time in nineteenth-century England, to those years when the game was growing and the first cheating started. For this was the time when the marvelous idea of the independent referee was born.
Football developed in exclusive private schools in England, where the pupils were all upper-class sons of upper-class parents who didn’t want to deal with them, and so sent them out of their sight to get educated, then to return civilized and all grown up. In the schools the students were taught “fair play”, which emphasized that when you competed, you owned up if you broke the rules, and you never did anything naughty to your opponents. In games like that, you didn’t need officials, but if by some strange chance two opponents or two captains could not agree, the players appealed to umpires (usually school masters) who stood on the sidelines watching.
It was all wonderfully honest, I suppose, if we forget for a moment that the fathers of those upper-class boys were systematically lying, cheating, killing and stealing their way to owning 25 percent of the planet (the part known as the British Empire). Be honest when you play, my boy! There’ll be plenty of time left when you’re older for cheating and stealing. And so it happened that when the boys left their private schools, and wanted to continue playing this grand game, they adopted the same rules of behavior they learned in Eton or Harrow or Winchester or the other posh halls of learning. They didn’t cheat, and so they didn’t need officials.
Enter the professional player, the reason we have referees. Late in the nineteenth century, the game of football spread throughout society (male society, that is) and competition became testy. Some players of unusual skill were actually given money to play, and bonuses if they won. Needless to say, but those incentives caused players to develop sophisticated methods of bending and breaking the laws. (It’s hard to believe nowadays, but some of them would bring down an opponent to stop him scoring. Others would deliberately stand in front of the ball to delay the taking of a free kick. And some would resort to hard play to intimidate or even injure other players. Can you imagine?)
The captains couldn’t sort out this kind of thing, and the club officials on the sidelines weren’t any more honest than the players. So some bright spark came up with the idea of having an independent official, not connected to either of the clubs, standing on the side to decide any disputed points. Well, there were so many disputed points that within a year or two he moved onto the field, and soon began to make judgements, whether the players wanted him to or not. The referee had arrived: the independent, fearless official paid to make decisions, irrespective of the fame of the player or the notoriety of the club. The man who would punish home team or away with equal accuracy, and then go home and sleep soundly all night.
The concept of the independent, unbiased referee is a wonderful one . . . theoretically. Now let’s examine the independent referees in the World Cup, and why things went so terribly wrong in many games.
The selection of referees started a number of years ago, about the same time as one man wanted to fulfill his ambition to be the president of FIFA upon the retirement of Dr. Havelange of Brazil. He had to make sure that he had enough votes locked up before the election took place. Now, Europe has more votes than any other confederation in FIFA, but not a majority worldwide. The vote of the nation of Vanuatu (look it up!) counts the same as the vote of Germany or Brazil, as does the vote of Burkina, in Africa, even though there may be only twelve pitches in the capital Ouagadougou.
But lock up enough votes from small countries in Africa, Oceania, CONCACAF and Asia, and you can outscore someone supported by the big football nations of Europe or South America. How do you get the votes? Well, in the old-fashioned way: You make promises. Promises of development money to build fields (money handed over in cash), promises of entry into big tournaments (ever wonder why the number of teams in the World Cup has increased?), promises to host a big tournament (would you believe a World Cup Final in Nigeria?), and promises that your officials will get a chance to do big games. Win the election, and let the selection of referees begin!
And so in the last two World Cups we have had referees from very small countries, in many of which no professional football is played. How can a referee with that kind of background ever be prepared for the heat of competition involving the world’s best players? He can’t, of course, and so we have officials “in over their heads”, refereeing games they have neither the skill nor experience to manage. The result? Weird decisions, not just controversial ones. (The controversial “no handball” call in the USA-Germany game was, in my opinion, the correct one. It was an inadvertent handball caused by the speed of the action and the fact that the player could not get his hand out of the way.)
The referees in the last two World Cups do not fit my definition of the independent referee, because they were selected based upon political considerations, upon favors given and accepted, upon a form of corruption that this great game does not need. So where do you place the blame for the officiating in the World Cup? On the doorstep of the President of FIFA, Sepp Blatter, and not upon the shoulders of the referees.
Bob Evans was a referee in the professional leagues for many years, a FIFA Referee for the United States, became the National Director of Referee Instruction there, and eventually the first American to be named a FIFA Referee Instructor. He is the author (with Tony Waiters) of "Teaching Offside" and (with Ed Bellion) of "For the Good of the Game" a new book about techniques and practical wisdom for today’s referees. Both are published by Youth Sports Publishing ).
The Independent Referee?