Ref's are 96% Correct.

A report by the Fifa Referee's commitie has found that the Referee's got 96% of decisions correct at the world cup.  They reviewed video evidence of the games analysis the decisions.

We are talking about thousands of decisions made in 62 games, some of them very, very difficult decisions and the vast majority of them were correct," Jose Maria Garcia-Aranda said, adding that the 'success rate' was higher than for players taking penalties

English Team makes World Cup Final Shock

Theres an old joke.  What do you call an English man in a world cup final..........The Referee.  That will be the case this Sunday when Howard Webb will be the first Englishman to Referee the World Cup Final since 1974.  This was when Jack Taylor took charge of Holland in their World Cup Final defeat to Germany.  Hopefully though Howard wont walk out and have to delay kick off due to their being no Corner Flags

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DsnK_4IWBWc]

Howard Webb will be abley assisted as allways by Darren Cann and Mike Mullarkey.

One small side note.  As much as Howard is to be congratulated on being the first Englishman to Referee a final since 1974.  He's not the first English man to be involved in the world cup final.  Mark Warren was assistant in 1998 and Phil Sharpe was assistant in 2002.

One thing reading Marks wiki page. His place of birth is actually wrong as he is from my home town and after the world cup final came to our local Referee's Association to give us a talk on the world cup.   The other thing that I am really intrigued about is the comment about him only officiating one game in 2005.  I was assistant on that game to him and there was no mention of this being the case so I am quite intrigued if Wikipedia is wrong (shock horror).

What do you give - Offside or not?

It's the first day of the season your Assistant Referee,  the below incident from the Holland vs Uruguay Semi Final happens, what are you giving Goal or Offside.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZGqnFvWpRNY]

This incident caused quite a mix of opinions on twitter during the game.  The Media and TV commentators were going straight away for offside.   However my first inital thoughts was onside, the player even on one of the replay appeared to be level (16seconds in that clip).   Even watching the clip again and again, the right foot is ahead of the defender, although the rest of the body is level. So about 2 foot of the player maybe offside. 

•  There is then the question  is he attempting to play the ball or to move his leg out of the way? 


• What about the fact that the ball has come of the defender? 


• Now was the attacker also blocking the keepers view?

Now you've considered all that, think about how long it has taken you to consider it.  Now you'll have a better appreciation as to what an Asssistant Referee has to consider in a few seconds.

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World Cup Semi Final Appointments

FIFA have announced the world cup semi final match official appointments.

06/07/10
Netherlands – Uruguay
Referee: Ravshan Irmatov, Uzbekistan

07/07/10
Germany – Spain
Referee: Viktor Kassai, Hungary

Ravshan Irmatov goes to prove that if your from a "small" country then it doesn't mean that you're not capable of refereeing the big games.    I just hope that the media rumour that Howard Webb was taken of the Uruguay vs Ghana game isn't true.

No goal strikes twice for Jorge Larrionda

It's unlucky to have a situation like the Lampard goal happen to you.  However if it's the second time it has happened to you then that's real bad luck.   Mr Larrionda experienced this four years ago in Brazil vs Colombia qualifying game for the 2006 world cup Just remember both times .Jorge Larrionda is reliant on his assistants.

seen via soccerblog

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oV-n1mgaDW8]