Not all referees are as god as Pierluigi Collina of Italy who was renowned as one of the best referees of his generation. However, while much of the refereeing at the 2010 South Africa World Cup has been reasonable, some of it has been quite poor.
It may be a FIFA directive, but the overreaction of referees to supposed 'use of the elbow' has become almost epidemic. The sending-off, for example, of Brazil's Kaka last Sunday was ridiculous. All he tried to do was prevent himself from getting hurt by an onrushing Ivory Coast player, who then crashed to the floor in death throes with something apparently akin to a smashed skull - when in reality his head wasn't touched at all.
The real culpable player was the Ivorian, not Kaka, yet Kaka is banned for one game and the Ivorian goes unpunished.
The failure of referees to inists on supposedly less critical rules followed leads to players questioning the 'bigger' decisions. Hardly any referees has insisted on throw-ins and free-kicks being taken from the right place, yet the rules are quite clear that a re-start should take place where the infringement took place. In this World Cup tht has been the point at which trowers can start their walk forward to where they run to take the throw, or where the free-kick taker chucks the ball forward forom where he'll take the free-kick.
Howard Webb's failure to book the player from the wall (Spanish, I think) who nearly beat the free-kick taker to the ball (thus being way less than 10 yards from the free-kick) was shameful.
Thus getting away with minor rule breaches, the players move on.
There has been far too much 'simulation' of injury in the World Cup, yet the guilty go unpunished. As for holding in the penalty box by defenders when there are free-kicks of corners, it is, frankly, laughable.
Rather like the players who go unpunished, FIFA need to get a grip.
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