Was FIFA afraid to name Kamikawa to officiate Final match?

Just my opinion, Kamikawa was good, but Elizondo was better.

 

Kamikawa was good, his ARs were a little suspect, at least the one on the near side.

 

True. I think FIFA's going to three-man teams was actually a step backward. It wasn't the "referees from minor football countries" screwing up in 2002 and this year - they've all got a decent amount of international match experience - it was FIFA's last-minute refereeing directives.

Now, perfectly good referees can be denied a place in the final because of their ARs. (Same goes the other way around. While I won't claim that either Prendergast or his ARs are anywhere near the best in the world, one has to feel sorry for the ARs, who aren't in the World Cup because *someone else* got injured.)

 

I'm almost wondering if Kamikawa was slated to have the Final, but last minute political pressure or some other outside influence forced FIFA to fall back to someone else. If it came down to crunch time FIFA might have seen Elizondo as a way to appoint someone without offending anybody.

 

Honestly, I don't think there were any political issues. If FIFA had wanted referees from traditional soccer powers refereeing finals, then we would have had different referees in 1994 (Sandor Puhl is from Hungary) and 1998 (I forgot the referee's name, but he was from Morocco if I'm not mistaken) wouldn't have refereed World Cup finals.

Kamikawa was certainly good enough to have refereed the final. If there was any political issue, it might have been that it's been so long since a South American referee has had a chance to referee a World Cup final since there has been a South American team in every World Cup final since 1986.

 

Yes, that's true. His name is Said Belqola.

On the other hand, the final in 1986 (Argentinia vs. Germany) was reffed by Romualdo Filho from Brazil. Four years later (Argentinia vs. Germany, too), Edgardo Codesal Mendez officiated for Mexico but was born in Uruguay.

With the fact that Elizondo was in charge of the Opening Match and nevertheless has been appointed for the final, I think that in the actual world cup, performance was the ultimative criteria to be appointed for a match in the later stage of the tournament. Did anybody think that no UEFA-ref would have been appointed for the last four matches of the wc? There would have been enough political reasons to appoint someone from UEFA, I think.

 

As we went on, yes. Poll and Merk were the big names going in and screwed up. Merk might have gotten a lesser role (3rd place or the Ukraine SF) if Germany wasn't in. Rosetti put himself in the running, but Italy took him out. Medina might have had something, but FIFA decided Larrionda was better, as was Kamikawa (the 2nd one is sellable, the 1st is a joke). I think the real shocker was Elizondo. He was my #1 for the tourny, but with FIFA being FIFA, I figured it would be golden boy Shield or Kamikawa to give Asia a spot while they had the chance.

 

Question: where does the third-place match fall in the importance of matches?

Obviously, the final is the big dog. Is the third-place match more or less important than the semi-finals?

I would imagine that the third-place match is more important than the quarters, but less important than the semis. I hope that's not my American bias showing through - I do think the third-place match is important, but in the semis, you're officiating the game that leads to the World Champion. Not so in the third-place, and even though both teams want to win and the fans love the game, it's not going to be as tough or as cut-throat of a game as the semis.

So I'd call it the 4th-most important match, not the 2nd. Also, probably not nearly as hard of a game as any of the knockout games. Thoughts?

 

Maybe in the Olympics, when there's still a medal, it's more important, but in the World Cup, I'd rather have a semi.

 

I wonder if Elizondo would still have had the final had either Germany or Portugal won their semi. He had seen both teams earlier in the tourney (Germany in the opener and Portugal in the QF). I can't imagine he would get the match, especially if it was Portugal in the final having just seen them in the knockout round.

Maybe that would have opened it up for Kamikawa.

 

If he was from Morocco, how was that fair to Brazil? The Brazilians beat Morocco in the WC, so picking a ref from Morocco was definately a poor choice. You wouldn't a Mexican ref to officiate a United States WC game after they had beaten Mexico.

 

This World Cup, a Spanish referee did the France-Brazil game after France had just beaten Spain

 

Which matches did Kamikawa officiate in?

Elizondo had the high profile England match. And in the Rooney incident, not only did he make the right call, but also his first concern was the condition of the injured player, exactly by the letter, whereas many refs would have jumped straight to their pocket for the red card. Perhaps he was just fortunate to have been involved in the right match to prove himself under pressure?

 

I think the POL-ECU and ENG-TRI. Those are the ones I remember.

Why would FIFA shut him out for almost amonth, through the knockout stage and then give him the 3rd place game, let alone consider him for the final?