FIFA refuses to come out of the stone age, instead preferring futbol to be refereed by one human being guaranteed to make mistakes – mistakes that the world can watch in gorgeous hi-def slow motion, over and over, seconds after they occur. Players perpetually dive and shove and take cheap shots behind the ref’s back, unashamed of the camera catching their every move, simply because it pays off – the fans may boo, but the play goes on in their favor, and the only one clueless to the truth is the poor overworked referee.
\nPoorly distributed cards aside, the number of bad calls at this year’s World Cup has been staggering, with the most well-known errors leading to an incorrect score. Even before the World Cup began, complaints regarding the famous French handball that knocked Ireland out of qualifying were at a din. During, the US were mysteriously stripped of a winning goal against Slovania without explanation, England was denied a critical goal that was a yard inside the net, and Argentina was given a goal against Mexico when it was clear to everyone that their man was offside. These kind of errors not only change the actual score, but provide a mental blow that certainly further affects the outcome. And don’t even get me started on the red cards, apparently distributed randomly as the lone referee grapples with maintaining control.
\nThe most shameful thing that FIFA has done is scapegoat the referees. All three refs that made the goal errors have been sent home, as well as another that sent off Kaka after some ridiculous Ivory Coast acting. Talk about not fixing the problem. Until FIFA adds more referees, implements goal-line technology, and generally decides that truth is better than drama, they will be ON MY LIST. :P<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"