The team at the World Cup Finals never wins

The team at the World Cup Finals never wins.

The man in the hottest refereeing seat who picks the soccer judges laughed, with a touch of irony, despite then overwhelming pressure surrounding the referees in Japan and South Korea.

It's been brickbats galore for the men in black as leading world powers like Italy, Portugal and Spain have blamed them for their acrimonious exits.

George Cumming, Fifa's Director of Refereeing Development, admitted: "Mistakes have been made in this tournament. But it is absolutely wrong to bring out any conspiracy or corruption theories among the referees."

The team he refers to - in a World Cup tournament of 32 qualifying countries - comprise 72 referees andassistant referees from around the world.

"We knew from the start that we're a team that will never win, that seldom gets the praises and always gets the smallest of mistakes highlighted and ridiculed," he said.

"But this is the name of the game where the brickbats will always fall on the match officials because the most convenient scapegoat for any player, coach, manager or fan is the referee."

He said the match officials are "honest men and they do their best in every match.

"I do not think they lose their credibility if they make a mistake. If corruptive things happen, they lose their credibility, otherwise they are just mistakes."

"We've not come across a single case of referee corruption in the three weeks of this tournament. But, sadly, a handful of major mistakes have cropped up, which to me was not surprising when you consider that, over a period of 60 matches, about 4,200 decisions have been made by the referees.

"The number of decisions in each game is about 70. So if you multiply 60 by 70, you get roughly 4,200 decisions. If you analyse all the decisions, you may have six major mistakes, mostly regarding offside.

"So you have a mistake ratio of about one in 700. Statistically, it is very, very low. Mistakes are always emphasised, never the right decisions.

"Referees are only human and errors can never be entirely discounted. But it saddens the Fifa referees committee very much when conspiracy or corruption theories crop up and they are always unfounded."

Cumming, who was in Singapore two years ago to conduct an S-League pre-season seminar, said: "There's never a cover-up when it comes to those who don't perform. We've taken appropriate action against the errant referees. We have a strict policy never to name them in public because it's gross injustice, like in a court of law, to shame the judges in the media.

"During the post-mortem sessions, some of the referees and assistant referees acknowledged their mistakes, made possibly under pressure from the tense stadium environment.

"But going by the laws of the game, their decisions pertaining to the rules cannot be reversed. We can review if it concerns a yellow or red card.

"But I want to re-affirm that referees are honest men and they try their best. The idea is to try to be fair. This is very important, but mistakes always happen.


"The referee's mistake is part of the game, like the player's mistake, like the coach's mistake. We need to be more human with the match officials."