FIFA's Response To Criticism Of World Cup Officiating: Censor Replays Of Match Action... What?

Alright I’m sick of FIFA and all their crap. There have been at least half a dozen terrible officiating calls during the World Cup that have either disallowed legitimate goals or allowed illegitimate ones. They have been incredibly blatant and have had a serious effect on the outcomes of matches considering how few goals are scored in the World Cup and how a change in the scoreboard can seriously alter how the two teams play the rest of the match in terms of momentum, strategy and heart. The two most grievous offenses were England’s no-goal against Germany that was clearly a yard past the goal line and Argentina’s first goal against Mexico where the goal scorer Tevez was several feet offside. Those two calls were much worse than the phantom calls that removed a pair of US goals against Slovenia and Algeria (which were still terrible in their own right) because it only took a single replay to show just how wrong the referees had been. In both cases every player and coach as well as everyone in the stadium for that matter could see the injustice and most were demanding that the refs overrule their decision.

This kind of thing has happened before and FIFA maintains their stance that they “will consider using electronic replay” but for some reason nothing ever materializes. In my opinion FIFA thinks way too highly of itself and its product and doesn’t want to “taint its tradition” with modern technology. They seems to have this idea that human error is an integral part of the game and if a referee misses a call at high speeds then the plays should just deal with it and move on.

They hammered this point home this week by announcing that they will now censor the replays of live action shown on the stadiums’ big screens in response to criticism of officiating, specifically citing Mexico’s protest over Argentina’s second round goal which was sparked after the replay showed how offside the Argentines were. I am personally amazed at the hubris FIFA and their officials are showing us right now by not being willing to admit their mistakes until well after the match in which they happened so their mistakes cannot be challenged. Now they won’t even show replays when they mess up so players and fans won’t get mad at them. That is simply cowardice.

I can understand not overturning poor calls on congested plays in the box like the ones that robbed Team USA. A good comparison can be seen in NFL officiating; there is holding along the offensive line on almost every single play and it is up to the refs to judge how egregious the infraction is, sometimes they get it right, sometimes they make bad calls. The point is you can’t go back and review every penalty because you’ll start finding penalties on every single play and the game will go nowhere. However when it comes to reviewing goal scoring where it is 99% clear what the correct call is and where the outcome of the game is likely on the line then it is time for referee’s to shelve their pride and make the right call. Or at least admit right then and there that the referee didn’t get a good look at a fast-moving play and was unable to make the correct call.

(Remember the Ed Hochuli call a couple years ago that basically gave the Broncos a win over the Chargers after he blew whistle early on a fumble that would have won the game or San Diego? Hochuli blew his whistle on a fumble initially thinking it was an incomplete pass thereby stopping the play and preventing the Chargers from making the recovery which they easily would have done. Hochuli immediately admitted that it was his fault for blowing the whistle but the rule book states that they play is dead and so he basically said that it was his error that screwed the Chargers but he couldn’t change the rulebook. Hochuli took a lot of heat but also earned a lot of respect for admitting that he was wrong, it was just the nature of the rules and in the aftermath the injustice didn’t seem nearly as bad.)

FIFA simply has no sack (they are a soccer organization after all) and want to sit back on this “human-error and tradition” crap to deflect any legitimate arguments. All they need to do is look at replay in the NHL. There was a perfect example during the NHL finals where the Fiyers scored on a puck that replay showed to be clearly be passed the goal line. The ref initially ruled no-goal because it was hard to tell at such fast speeds. Play continued for several minutes before there was a stoppage but during that time replay officials were able to see the replay and realize their error. They took the opportunity at the first possible stoppage to review the play where it was ruled a good goal and the clock was reset. The NHL literally erased several minutes of game time because they missed a pivotal goal but quickly moved to rectify the error and serve justice, not a single person had a problem with it.

Now why can’t FIFA do that?