World Cup Officiating (All-time)

Unak78 · Dec 10, 2013

This is from a conversation that started in the Group G forum as a response to the OP's analysis of one of the team's benefiting from calls that other teams did not. My response was to point out that this is not exclusive and teams benefiting from poor officiating is endemic in the World Cup and there are far more conspicuous examples throughout the competition going back years.

mfw13 said: ↑

Ghana: The only African team to advance to the group stages in both 2006 and 2010, it may be asking a lot of them to make it three times in a row, especially given that they had the assistance of a few favorable refereeing decisions during the group stages in both 2006 (the very questionable PK awarded in the match against the US) and 2010 (the PK that should have been, but was not, awarded to Serbia in their match against Australia). It should also be noted that this Ghana team appears to be a bit weaker than the 2006 and 2010 versions, having failed to beat a non-African team since WC 2010 and having been eliminated by the likes of Zambia and Burkina Faso at the last two African Nations Cups. They are the consensus best team in Africa at the moment, but given the weakness of African nations at the past two World Cups, that may not mean all that much.
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Unak78 said: ↑

Every team that has gotten deep in a World Cup or won a World Cup has benefited from favorable officiating. The only time people take note of this is when a unexpected team makes a run. Ghana benefited from no more calls than any other team in 2010. They earned their run in 2010 and they're ridiculously underrated right now.
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zahzah said: ↑

In 2006 even if Ghana won a questionable penalty, then all they needed to progress was a draw. They won the game. And Ghana should have had a handball awarded vs Germany in 2010 when it was 0:0.
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Unak78 said: ↑

Argentina began the Mexico rout on a Tevez goal that was so offside that he could have had a one-on-one conversation with Mexico's keeper before the defenders arrived back in the play.
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Unak78 said: ↑

Granted, Mexico's players did not respond at all appropriately to that call and lost their composure. It's similar to what happened to CIV's players with the Luis Fabiano handball, which was pretty intentional since he move his upper arm towards the ball. CIV's players lost their composure as well. Good teams shouldn't lose their composure, but this highlights the fact that the World Cup and football in general are inundated with poor officiating. And it's a hard sport to officiate too. Only the most blatant acts of gamesmanship are really ever remembered.
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Unak78 said: ↑

This is true.

I have to add that the same thing happened to England against Germany with the Lampard goal that wasn't called. It's why you kinda have to train your team to expect the worse in big games. I personally believe that there is a tendency among referees to give the benefit of the doubt to bigger name players. The team that they think is better tend to get more calls. This type of bias is impossible to avoid and occurs in every sport. Take the Dallas Mavericks first NBA Finals against the Heat; D-Wade got fouls called for breathing on him and the Mavs lost their composure. The second time around the Mavs expected the worst and were prepared for it. It's harder in football though bc there are so few goals scored. In all three of those examples, the games were close until the controversial call happened. And the underdogs were disheartened by a single bad call which either allowed or disallowed a goal.
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grandinquisitor28 said: ↑

I look back at the US experiences in cups. Sometimes there were matches in which a call was up to the eye of the beholder, like the non-pk the us gave up that Friedel saved against S. Korea (both players had arms wrapped around one another), the Donovan goal waived off against Poland which caused a Tevez style melt down. Looking at the play you see Donovan score on a header to equalize in about the 10th minute, the goal is waived off because a Polish player the equivalent of a TE, to Donovan's Placekicker size took a dive. Some argue it was a foul, Im suspicious when a guy the size of Donovan is causing a player far larger to fall down, and get a goal waived off. The US was irate, argued vociferously with the ref while Poland counterattacked with ref support and immediately made it 2-0 in less than 30 seconds going the other way. That melt down should have cost us the QF run, instead, Portugal bailed us out by losing their minds against S. Korea, and after 5 flubbed break aways, S. Korea finally scored and knocked Portugal out w/some GK help. A similar, depends on how you interpret it call was made in the QF with Germany where an auto red card and PK should have been awarded for Frings pulling a Suarez, but the ref was delusional and didn't give the PK or the red. Frings arms were at a 135 or so degree angle when the ball hit it. Regardless as to whether he was moving it or not (he was), the arm was acting as an extra goal keeper arm by his leaving it in that position. That's an auto PK, some disagree, but there arguments are flawed. In that game the US didn't break down mentally, and nearly drew it later w/a header that flashed just over the cross bar.

In '06 the US had the Italy red cards, where at least one of those cards was harsh and they held together mentally, not so much against Ghana when the Reyna nightmare injury goal, followed by the bogus PK right after Dempsey equalized more or less broke their spirit.

In '10 it was the opposite, I've never personally seen a team have 3 legit goals denied in back to back group games but that happened against Slovenia and Algeria. A screen capture was even made of the goal against Slovenia which showed the entire Slovenian team commiting fouls in the box on the corner where Edu scored, and yet the ref not only waived off the goal, but actually inexplicably called a foul on the US. At the time I could only imagine the ref was either paid off, or in a moment of tension accidentally called the wrong team for the foul like Ref Tripplet in the notorious Thanksgiving game, when a coin toss was held, the steelers called (heads I think? its been a while), tripplet then said "Steelers call Tails" and coin came up heads. Bettis and others looked at Tripplet like he'd been dosed with acid or shrooms. I wonder if that's what happened to the ref, he recently was involved in some bizarre CAF fixing scandal in which he was approached by Tunisian figures to rig their playoff with Cameroon, so there's that, but that doesn't mean he's guilty, just that guys came to him to get him to throw a game. Anyway the US beats slovenia 3-2 only for the ref to keep it a draw in one of the worst 3 calls in US World Cup History. Following that the US scores early against Algeria TWICE, and the ref calls both offsides when NEITHER are. I have no idea how the US didnt melt down from that, that they scored in the 91st minute a third goal to win 1-0 is astounding to me.

So with the US you can see in the last three cups vastly differing responses to the stress of getting hosed by the ref, sometimes its circumstances, sometimes its just the mentality of the team. Perhaps the US handled getting hosed so badly in Africa better because of the absurd, pure luck, howler that gave them a draw against England? So they felt luck was evening out? Not sure. Maybe they were just more mentally tough. But in '02 they handled issues, in '06 they didn't in the group finale, and in '10 they handled again. Interesting.

As for the hoops examples, you've got it. In basketball its been particularly egregious with ref(s?) on the take. The Sac-Lakers game from several years ago being one of the most notorious examples of either fixing, or simply giving everything to the favorites. I've seen it in all sports though. Irvin and the Cowboys got a pile of calls when they were winning super bowls that they don't anymore. The Niners were notorious for getting calls, except when they didn't (the '83 championship game at washington). the packers got some brutal calls going their way in Favre's prime in the late nineties. Kobe got the calls, ditto Jordan. Teams get calls when they're winning, and players get calls in the NBA because of the system which is marketed based on players, so refs feel a pressure there on top of simply having the natural of all bias towards the favorite and/or the home favorite.

Supposedly and Madden swears by this, after the Immaculate Reception TD at Pittsburgh that was illegal and gave the Steelers a ticket to the Super Bowl with zero seconds left instead of the Raiders, Madden was screaming at a ref absolutely livid, and quoted the ref as saying back to him, "I'd like to get out of hear alive, TOUCHDOWN!"

Sometimes the bias is blatant, but like you think sporting bias is similar to that of boxing, if a contender wants to beat the champion, he not only has to beat them, he has to beat them w/o question and without leaving any room whatsoever, even for a blind judge, for doubt. In sports, if you're an underdog you have to look at it that way. The US got screwed against Germany, knowing that going ahead, they needed to finish the opportunities they had to take the power out of the incompetent refs hands (Donovan's 2 chances for goals, Lewis's chance, Reyna's midfield volley, or Sanneh's flashing header just high), leaving it up to the refs against a world power or heavy favorite is ALWAYS playing with fire.

I kind of think S. Korea's run was more in keeping with the Raiders issue, the fans created an insane atmosphere for S. Korea which intimidated refs, and I think made them gun shy when it came to relatively close calls. Doesn't explain how the S. Korea got to keep France from scoring a goal despite being two yards into the goal mouth when he saved it though? Lol, that was one of those all time worst calls.
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I like this post bc it really gets after what I think is true about the nature of officiating and why bad calls tend to follow certain patterns and circumstances across all sports.

Personally, as I said earlier, bad calls are an endemic part of sports. Good teams tend to get the benefit of the doubt and home teams tend to intimidate the refs. And some teams get calls made against them due to a certain reputation they might have or relationship with the officials, the competition itself or their style of play. For the most part fans and media ignore the calls that the good teams get in the long run bc we assume that they would have won anyway. Fans ultimately learn to get over the calls that the home teams get bc we expected it to happen. And the latter tends to get ignored bc fans might have the same biases that the officials have. It affects how we evaluate the performances of some teams that benefit from this but not others. I believe that it's a function of human nature. What separates FIFA from the other major sports is their stubborn unwillingness to look to modern technology to assist in the areas where technology can. Nor will they even adjust things like the number of officials without a massive procrastination.

And here's perhaps one of the worst calls of all-time...

Football is a tough sport to officiate, but FIFA almost seems to perversely enjoy the "human element" and thinks that the mistakes themselves are a part of football. Now there's only so much that can be done, but FIFA isn't even interested in going those two steps to make it at least a bit better.

Now this isn't something that can be taken from a single perspective. Many teams have benefited from this and most teams have been victimized by it at some point in their respective histories. The real question is why? And is this the best example to set for some of the league that need guidance in regulating their own officiating scandals in countries ranging from China to Nigeria? FIFA refuses to set any standards and they'll say that it's cost. If all countries cannot purchase the technology then none should, but the cost is not prohibitive. FIFA can also assist in these costs for the betterment of the game. And idk what anyone might think, the money is there in alot of those nations that one might not believe can afford it. It's there, whether it's being used correctly or not. Threaten their sanctioning and they'll find it.