Saturday, July 01, 2006

Worst referring decision.......

Those of you whose teams were eliminated, before you go away, we wonder if you could help us out with something. Also those of you whose teams are still in it, and everyone else too. Here’s the thing.

There have been an awful lot of weird refereeing decisions in this World Cup. Comical ones, outrageous ones, bizarre ones, decisions that were just plain wrong. We’ve tried to cite a few of them, but people keep writing in to say “You think that was bad? What about the time when . . . ”

So we’re asking you now to send us the one refereeing gaffe you think has been the worst of the World Cup so far. It can be funny or not, something pivotal or not. The only rule is that you keep your answers brief: 100 words or less.

What’ll it be? Graham Poll suddenly remembering that he’d forgotten to send off the Croatian player he’d already shown two yellow cards to, then issuing him a third while the Australians were scoring a goal? Carlos Amarilla awarding a penalty to Ukraine after Andrei Shevchenko theatrically tripped over his own feet? Horacio Elizondo overruling his own linesman to allow Switzerland to score on Korea, then falling down as he points back to the center circle? (No video yet.) Markus Merk, Markus Merk, Markus Merk?
Thanks for helping out!
UPDATE: The second Swiss goal against Korea, which most of you have been writing in about, was a judgment call by Referee Elizondo. You may disagree with that judgment, but his call was indeed justified under the rules. The Korean defender did deflect what might have been a pass to Barnetta to Frei instead — the only question that arises was how deliberate the Korean player’s act of deflecting the ball was. You can see the goal here. Either way, since it was a judgment call and we’ve had so much on it already, let’s try to limit discussion of that goal to new points only.
Posted by Samvit :: 5:44 PM :: 0 comments

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