FIFA released the 2010 World Cup Technical Report and it contains some gems. I’ll get to some team-related highlights in another post, but I thought these observations on the state of the referees were interesting. You know, because they weren’t that good. Lesson: FIFA can spin anything. Someone get Sepp Blatter a job in Washington.
It should also be mentioned that despite the tremendous difficulty experienced, the vast majority of the decisions taken in the 64 matches were correct. Of the 145 goals awarded, 142 were correctly given. Furthermore, 13 goals were correctly disallowed for offside (100 percent accuracy) and two more goals should have been allowed, meaning that 96.88 percent of the decisions were correct overall.
Of the 663 shots at goal, only five were goal-line incidents. Of these, four were correctly judged and one incorrectly. There were 65 incidents inside the penalty area in the 64 matches. In 45 of them, it was correctly decided not to award a penalty and in five of them a penalty would have been the correct decision. 15 penalties were given, all of them correct decisions (100 percent accuracy).
But there were errors, yes? So how should we deal with them?
It is clear that errors – some of them serious – did occur in the hundreds of often very difficult decisions taken over the 64 matches. These errors are neither covered up nor justified but are meticulously analysed to learn from them and improve future training plans. The challenge is to work towards improvements.
Were there other highlights? The kids! The kids!
Another cause for satisfaction from a refereeing standpoint was the emergence of young talent at this competition, who officiated some very difficult matches. This is the fruit of the FIFA programme for preparing World Cup referees. For example, the young Uzbek referee Irmatov did a brilliant job in the opening match, surprising many, but not FIFA, as he began his training with us in 2003. Several other officials from various parts of the world further demonstrated the effectiveness of these preparation programmes for the referees taking part in the World Cup.
Also, these dudes can run for days. “Despite the demands of modern football, the number of matches held, the travel and the weather conditions, the referees’ physical performance was excellent,” the report reads. So there’s that.