Go World Cup Yourself

We have a lot of things going on in the Wide World of Sports: World Cup, U.S. Open, College World Series, NBA Draft, blah blah blah. We start here:

World Cup. There's no lack of story lines, as always seems to be the case. Brazil looks like they just need to show up to win. Same with Argentina. Portugal and Holland also looking quite good so far. Should be interesting to see who comes out of the Group G "Group of Death," with Brazil and Portugal in position to advance, but Ivory Coast could score 10 on North Korea and make it interesting.

Much more compelling is the meltdown of the French, a crazy call in the U.S./Slovenia game, and those freakin' horns. I laugh in the general direction of the French – they'll get no sympathy from anyone, especially the Irish, who got screwed out of a World Cup slot on a bad call in a qualifier. As for the U.S., the head of FIFA's referees committee, Jose Marcia Garcia-Aranda, had this defense in a press conference today:

"Some decisions are not good on the field of play and this is, for human beings, natural. We can't explain every decision. Our duty is to prepare them in the best way we can."

"Later, maybe with the benefit of 32 cameras and thousands of people assessing this kind of situation, we realize these decisions were not fully correct (but) the duty of the referees is not to explain their decision."

"The referees are there to try to implement the laws of the game on the field, not to explain every single situation. Otherwise they are not focused on the game; they are focused on the media. The best players in the world also make mistakes. It's wrong to say the credibility of football is in doubt." [From HERE]

I have highlighted a few curiosities. It appears referees have no "duty" to explain, well, anything. I find this a head scratcher for a few reasons.

I am under no disillusionment that the game I played in the '80's in Ohio bears only superficial resemblance to what's going in South Africa at the moment. That said, I don't remember referees making random calls absent explanation. In fact, I don't remember other World Cups where this was the case (may have happened, but I don't recall.)

Regardless, for the head of a committee in charge of enforcing the rules of a game to say they have no responsibility to explain how they go about doing so is mind boggling to say the least.

Garcia-Aranda claims, "We can't explain every decision." Which begs the question, why not? He goes even further, "…the duty of the referees is not to explain their decision." So, not only are they unable to explain referees' decisions, they seem to be under some obligation to not even try.

But here's what I think is the real kick in the jewels: "The referees are there to try and implement the laws of the game, not to explain every single situation. Otherwise they are not focused on the game…" This statement implies referees should not be required to explain any decision on the field; in fact, they should not even attempt to do so, because if they do they won't be able to do their job.

This seems to be an argument against a scenario that doesn't exist. You don't see players getting upset at every throw-in, corner kick, or even offside call. Sure there can be a moment or two of argument, but the games move on and are none the less for it.

However, when a call disallows a goal we have an entirely different scenario. Surely some sort of explanation is warranted when the referee waives off a goal due to some violation of the rules. Is it too much to ask that that referees explain how they "implement the laws of the game," especially in situations that clearly affect the outcome?

While I agree the referees should not be nit-picked on every call, there are calls and then there are calls. A close call at first base in the first inning is different than the same call in the bottom of ninth in a perfect game. A throw-in call at mid-field in the first half is decidedly different than waiving off a goal in the final minutes of a tie game, and has to merit some sort of explanation. Of the hundreds, if not thousands of calls made in the World Cup so far to ask for an explanation of one doesn't seem too much to ask.

As for the vuvuzelas, I'll leave that to Whitey.