Analysis: USA-SVN - Coulibaly (MLI)

I don't think I can give you details 35 years later. But back then there weren't that many girls teams....or refs. So we'd see the same people again and again. And they would do multiple games in the same day. So, it wouldn't be weird when no ref was there to find out who it was supposed to be by name so you could figure out if they weren't there because their match on a different field wasn't yet over. And 15 or 16 year old young men don't change how they look all that much.

 

Thanks Bob!

From Bob Evans' blog.




HAHA love it.

 

I just don't understand why the national soccer federations accept the utter incompetence, corruption and lack of transparency that seems to be standard operating procedure for FIFA. This is especially true for refereeing.

The fact that refereeing in the WC, one of the biggest sporting events in the world, is so uneven is a disgrace. As I understand it, FIFA does not have its own corps of referees, but instead relies on the various federations to provide refs. This is idiotic- it guarantees that corruption is easier and leads to a wide range of (in)competence and experience for the refs.

This is a situation that could be cleared up, if the top-tier soccer federations would get together and demand reform. But, for whatever reason, no one seems to care enough to do anything.

Maybe my opinion is a biased American viewpoint, but I expect professional sports federations to take all available steps to make sure refereeing is as accurate as possible. The fact that FIFA has not instituted video review of calls, even though it's been proven to work by the NFL and other leagues, is a mark against the sport.

American sports fans, at least, are hugely turned off by this. Crap like this will serve to handicap the growth of soccer in this country.