World Cup Refs

FIFA announced today that certain refs would be sent home for the rest of the World Cup. these include graham poll, who issued three yellow cards to one player, and valenin ivanov, who handed out more cards in the portugal/netherlands match than most people do at christmas...

many people, including myself, have been critical of the style of officiating at this years WC. while FIFA claims that they want the game to be called more strict and have urged refs to use cards for certain fouls all they have done is slow the game down. they have turned it into the NBA with every time you breathe on someone there is a foul and this severely disrupts the flow of the game. the one thing that it has done is increase the amount of diving, especially in the box. when players know a game will be called tight every bump turns into a flow and every high arm turns into an elbow to the face. hopefully FIFA will go back and look at the footage from these games and make changes on the way they ask the refs to officiate...

so now the round of eight is upon us and all we can hope for is some better officiating and that the best players can stay on the field and can be the ones to determine the outcome of the games.