Did Thierry Henry use his hand to keep the ball in play and set-up William Gallas for the goal that prevented the Republic of Ireland from qualifying for the World Cup 2010? Obviously he did; “it was quite blatant” commented Irish defender Richard Dunne.
Yet did the referee see the incident, blow the whistle for a breach of the rules, yellow card the offender and award Ireland the free-kick? No; Henry handled the ball, crossed for Gallas and France scored, thus qualifying for the World Cup.
Did the ball cross the line in 2010 when Frank Lampard’s effort cannoned off the underside of the crossbar in South Africa? Well yes, evidently. The ‘keeper that fooled the assistant referee Mauricio Espinosa, Manuel Neuer, admitted it immediately after the game, “yes, it was over. It should have been a goal for England.”
Yet did the referee use his power to overrule the assistant and award the goal? No; the referee who had manned the centre for the semi-final of the 2006 World Cup between Portugal and France, who had been registered as an international FIFA referee for 12 years and had become, despite his critics donning him “Red card Larrionda”, one of the world’s best officials, continued play and was subsequently dropped from the tournament to referee no more games in the World Cup 2010.
Both above examples screamed, with a high pitched tone of the prepubescent, for technology. It had long been a problem of the “beautiful game” that its egg-chasing rivals had over on it. Instant replay lets Rugby League referees call upon a “video referee” for almost all decisions. A second view of the action can be seen and clarification is cast on the incident which allows for greater accuracy in all refereeing decisions.
At the time three technological advances that could be implemented into the game of football were discussed by Blatter & co.; firstly and most appealingly,was the idea of tiny cameras fitted into goalposts and Hawkeye technology. Secondly, an idea that has been trialed in some leagues but only thought about and then forbidden internationally, is a micro-chipped ball which would track its location. The last idea was the only idea implemented; a sixth and seventh official who runs the lines from corner flag to goalpost. This had already been guinea-pigged, and with little added value.*
Now, once more, recent activities in English football have highlighted the need for technology in refereeing decisions. 20 red cards have been handed out so far this season in The Premier League, 20% of them came this weekend. I’d argue three of the four were correct and that may seem like a reasonable return but if every fourth refereeing decision was wrong, based on figures so far this campaign, 49 decisions this weekend alone were incorrect and 451 overall this season.
Furthermore the manner of these discrepancies are absurd; on Saturday, during the West Midlands derby between Aston Villa and West Brom, Villa midfielder Chris Herd was sent off with the score at 1-0 to the home team and consequently conceded a penalty. West Brom went on to score two, having missed the penalty, to beat the 10-men home side.
Chris Herd walked past Jonas Olsson and was sent off for it. It was madness, utter madness. However, little was made of it because, without justifying it, pundits didn’t lambast it either. They discussed how the assistant referee responsible for flagging for the penalty was the assistant referee in the World Cup final in South Africa and how the decision was made on intuition because the foul was on his “blindside.”
The F.A have repelled the three-match ban that Aussie Herd was set to face but Aston Villa still had to play 60 minutes with ten men and subsequently lost.
Imagine if the 10 seconds of confusion was 10 seconds of replay. Villa may not have lost, Brunt wouldn’t have faced the embarrassment of hitting such a hideous penalty and Phil Dowd wouldn’t be left as a reinforced villain of The Claret and Blues.
*In October 2009, Belgian referee Paul Allaerts tried to send off Fulham’s Brede Hangeland for a foul committed by Stephen Kelly when the sixth official failed to highlight the correct culprit.
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Written by Jordan Florit for www.may-cause-offence.tumblr.com/ For more articles like this visit my website or my Twitter @JordanFlorit