Yesterday, my colleague Paul Doyle wrote a nice piece attacking pernickety referees for ruining the World Cup. His tongue-in-cheek solution was that they needed to be humiliated. I disagree. Most just need help.
I felt for Graham Poll last night. In one respect - making the Croatia v Australia game flow - he did pretty well. But in pretty much every other he had a shocker, booking one player three times, blowing for full time just as a Tim Cahill shot was crossing the line, and missing a blatant handball to boot.
He's not the only ref to struggle in Germany 2006, of course. We've had a phonebook-sized number of erroneous yellow cards, three goals that weren't spotted, and myriad incorrect penalty decisions.
The first problem could be solved by Fifa toning down its gung-ho directives to officials, and by introducing a panel to review and rescind yellow and red cards after the match. It won't happen though: Fifa has an almost-Catholic belief in the infallibility of referees, and themselves.
The second solution is also obvious, if contentious: introduce instant video replays.
As I've argued previously, two forces are at a play in the modern game. First, football is faster and more frantic than ever before. Second, there are fewer goals than ever before, which also exacerbates the impact of poor refereeing. Decisions may even out over a season, but they rarely do so over the course of a match.
Technology would clearly help. Yesterday, Ghana were given a penalty that wasn't, while Australia were robbed of one that was. Within 10 seconds of both incidents, TV replays had made this stunningly clear.
Sure, video evidence would slow the game down slightly, but not as much as the luddites would have you believe. The ball is only in play for 60-odd minutes anyway and double-checking, say, a goal-line clearance, penalty or offside appeal would add seconds not minutes. If there were any doubts at all about the TV replays, the referee's original decision would stand.
Introducing technology would also change the risk v reward debate that zips around a player's head: there'd be no incentive to dive for a penalty when someone in the stands could alert the referee, who would soon be waving yellow in your direction. And why pretend to be punched, when in 30 seconds' time you'd be receiving red for play-acting?
Clearly there's a balance to be struck between maintaining the flow of the game and making the right decision but if other sports can do it, so can football. Ultimately, it boils down to what is preferable: a 30-second delay in play, or the Hand of God? Getting it right, or allowing cheats to get away with it? Certainty, or random chance?
