Big Question: Which has been the most poorly officiated match?

what about the red against the swedes today?…..WTF was that sh**. Can someone explain that to me??

Most of you mentioned Tunisia – Ukraine, but noone mentioned Spain – Ukraine. Which is weird.

Croatia- Australia worst by far…although the refs I think have been extremely inconsistent in all the games.

Worst individual call was a tie:
Mexico-Argentina, Heinze’s foul was a no brainer red which could have completely changed the match.

US-Ghana, awarding Ghana the penalty kick demoralized the Americans minutes after they had just tied.

Australia v. Croatia. There’s no excuse for three yellow cards, that ref should get the sack. Kewell’s equalizer was offside and Australia deserved two more penalties. It could have only been worse if the ref had started playing.

Mexico v. Argentina was great, no nonsense, very fair.

Very simple, France – Korea..

Korea vs. France.
the referee did a horrible job

i agree with the rest.
korea vs. france
that was a horrible game.

Australia v Croatia. 3 yellow cards before Simunic was shown red. Lucky the aussies went through

I think there should also be a Poll for the best officiated match.

Italy v. USA. Incredibly bad.

1. Korea-France
2. Italy-USA

Terrible refereeing.

Now you can add Mexico-Argentina to the list. I still want to hang that swiss referee.

Anyway, we go home with our heads looking to the sky. We lost like we always do, but we played like we never do.

Australia-Croatia has to be, especially if FIFA is advising that Poll return to England.

Tunisia-Ukraine
Australia-Croatia
Korea-France

What are you talking about Charlie? The Mexico-Arg game has probably been the best officiating at the tournament so far for a big game. No surprise then, that it’s been the best game so far.

USA – Italy followed closely by
Australia – Croatia
S. Korea – France (that was for sure a French goal)

italy vs. usa by far followed by ghana vs. usa what a terrible pk that took usa out of the game. basically US got screwed over. korea france was horrible too. i think that the swiss ref did one of the best jobs with mex vs argentina. he let them play and we didnt talk alot about him, which is a good thing.

Tunisia-Ukraine
The ref got everything right except the two most important calls of match- denying Tunisia a PK from an obvious handball in the box, and giving Ukraine a PK from an obvious dive in the box.

Mexico just suffered one bad call today. Heinze should probably have gotten red instead of yellow for being the last defender and denying an obvious goal scoring opportunity.

USA-Itlay
Ghana-USA
enough said.

Worst…

USA-Italy
Aussies-Croatia
France-South Korea
USA-Ghana

Best…

Mexico-Argentina

Arg-Mex was a great game and well-refereed, except that Heinze should have got a red card. Doesn’t qualify it for “worst ref performance” on just one mistake. In fact, all the other games everyone’s complaining about really only come down to one or two calls.

It’s gotta be Australia-Croatia for the worst. Three yellow cards, three clear-cut penalties of which only one was given, two pedantic yellows for Emerton in a “square-up” sending-off and, just to prove that what goes around comes around, Harry Kewell was a mile offside for the equaliser.

USA vs Italy
Togo vs Swiss
Tunisia vs Ukraine
Ivory Coast vs Holland
Croatia vs Australia
France vs Korea

Hell, I might as well mention all the games so far, this WC is a fluke. Even the pitch condition is poor, more players are getting hurt because of that than any championship and more teams are losing games because of its terrible condition.

I agree with all the others, but noone mentioned the Germany-Sweden match today. neither of the two yellow cards should have been called, and thus Sweden was a man short for 45 min on two calls that shouldn’t have been fouls, let alone cards.

not that sweden would have won, but they were certainly screwed.

not as bad as the U.S. was, cumulatively in the Italy and Ghana matches

Why did the ref permit “injury” time in the first half of the Brazil-Japan match when there was not a single stoppage for injury? Yes, Ronaldo scored in the 46th minute.

Worst referees
1-France-Korea
2-Ukraine-Tunisia
3-USA-Ghana
4-Argentina-Mexico

Best referees
1-Brasil-Japan
2-Brasil-Croatia
3-USA-Chec Rep
4-Ecuador-Poland

Mistakes
1-Arg-CIV goal refused to Arg
2-TUN-UKR hand ball on the FK
3-TUN-UKR PK for UKR
4-FRA-KOR goal refused to FR
5-MEX-ARG red card to Heinze
6-USA-GHA PK for GHA
But I think most of those mistakes were not purposefully made. We have the replay. The refes don’t. Other remark: the Europeans refs are more consistent than their South american counterparts.

USA vs Italy
USA vx Ghana

refs were just blind…

Graham Poll has made English Referee’s a laughing stock. He is as bad in the Premiership as he was in the Croatia v Australia match.
The ref last night should have given Heinze the red card.

COME ON ENGLAND

l8ter

The Argentina – Mexico match was well officiated for me, the ref did the right choise giving a yellow, since Ayala was near him. But the 90th minute goal by Messi was not offside and the pass to Tevez wasnt as well

The Mex-Arg. game was the best refereed match I’ve seen all tournament. I think the yellow was legit on Heinze, although since I’m a Mexican fan I wanted a red – probably half of the refs of the tourney would have given a red.

What I liked most was that he allowed them to play. He knew the Latin penchant for diving and didn’t call every single dive as a foul or a dive since it would have disrupted the game’s flow. He just let them play! Great game, best of the tournament so far.

Australia vs. Croatia.
Mr. Graham Poll did a helluva job giving 3 yellow card to the same player in one game!

I think the MEX-ARG was equally reffed…

Everyone talks about the Heinze card that should have been red… but what about the Messi goal that should have counted?

Fair game.

Don’t believe he hasn’t been called to account yet – but Merk refereeing Australia v Brazil. Disgraceful. ALL referees have favoured the more established football nations in every game but his display was shameful. 25 fouls to nine. as a german he should be able to recognise the Klinssman-style dive.

Lets face it guys the world cup is getting worse by the years. The refferes are ruining the game, plain and simple. If Fifa wants to keep people intersted like they were before they need to go back to the old style of playing. Let the game play out and be the official when needed. The referes are just trying to show the power that they have but now they are abusing it.

Definitely the Netherlands – Portugal game today. It was a joke. The ref was utterly out of control.

WOW!!!
Netherlands-Portugal was unbelievable!
Talk about ruining a game…

Holy crap, that Portugal-Netherlands game was atrocious!

Football definitely needs help in terms of proper officiating in real time. I’ve counted at least 12 obvious handballs that were not called, and we’ll all agree that there have been dozens of fake injuries and dives that should have been carded.

Seriously, this sport is anything BUT the “beautiful game.” It’s overrun with players gaming the system by faking and cheating. When winning relies on not getting caught or pretending to be hurt, you no longer have sport. Sorry.

Netherlands vs Portugal
4 Red & 16 Yellow Cards!
I can’t believe it!

France vs Korea
Thats a France GOAL!!

Portugal V. Netherlands
Clearly. But… Exciting!!!

Yellow Card Party!!!!

I think if all football was like this, it would catch on in America. :)

I just finished watching this Netherlands v. Portugal game. I had to literally take a walk around the block after watching that debaucle. And where was the Netherlands? They were almost given the opportunities, and yet, nothing was produced. Wow!

This topic was a day too early. Dutch v Portugal easily. Ref ruined what was an exciting game. What a shame.

Has got to be Portugal v Holland.
No Question….

The question should be what were the most acceptable since there are fewer? The world cup is no longer being seen as the best sporting event ever, but as a scam, with cheating by players acceptable and atrocious officiating that affects the result being the norm. Italy`s last minute penalty/dive was like a badly scripted film – obvious.What a shame.

Australia vs Italia today.

That 93rd minute penalty didn’t exist!!!

Portugal-Netherlands

Just the worst (to date) of a series of terrible efforts.

And, I thought the English Premiership officials didn’t have a clue a lot of the time….

How did these guys ever get to do games at this level. They’d cause a riot at a U-10 game!

Australia vs Croatia
Australia vs Italy

AND Wtf A GUY GETTING 3 YELlOWS IN A GAME AND HE TRIED OT STAY ON NOT TELLING THE REF HE HAD ALREADY A CARD! FOR CHRIST SAKE HOW SH** IS THAT

The Australia v Italy game. now, the game was officiated well for most of the game, but the penalty (if only the ref saw the crooked smile on his face as he dived!) cost Australia the game. a decision could not be more any more crucial.

IVANOV SHOULD BE FIRED.

WHO HANDS OUT CARDS EVERY MINUTE?

WHAT AN IDIOT.

I DON’t EVEN REMEMBER SEEING A GAME. I JUS SAW A BUNCH OF CARD. WAs seeing yellow everywhere right after the game.

THAT UGLY ASS REFEREE. GO BACK TO RUSSIA YOU IDIOT. HE WAS DEFINITELY TRYING TO get revenge because PORTUGAL WON 7-1 AGAINST russia which knocked them out of being qualified to go to GERMANY.

GO BACK HOME YOU STUPID IVANOV.

Tunisia was screwed, Shevchenko flopped and it was so obvious, what a dirt-bag. Regardless, Ukraine was destroyed today by Italy proving the fact that they were not supposed to be there in the first place.

Netherlands v, Portugal was an outrageous sham. France v Portugal was also quite poor. Phantom foul gets Frog’s a PK while Fr. penal fouls and handballs in the box are overlooked. Italy v Fr. could be an interesting match between two undeserved sides. A disappointing cup to say the least.

[...] Needless to say I’m annoyed with FIFA and the plethora of red and yellow cards, dubiously culminating in their shameful decision to suspend Torsten Frings for a love-swipe after the Argentina quarterfinal. Overall, the reffing has been — I was going to type “fair” — let’s just say it hasn’t changed the outcome of any of the games from the quarterfinals on (with the possible exception of the above-mentioned, but that was FIFA, not an individual ref). Prior to that I can think of no less than three matches that I saw that were hugely altered by outright gaffes or over-reactions: Italy-U.S. (no need to say more); Italy-Australia (total dive for the PK); and of course the Dutch-Portugal bloodbath. Then there was the Rooney incident and of course, the double-yellow/no red in Croatia-Australia, which I didn’t see. (All of which led one blogger to ask, “which was the worst refereed game you saw?” Frankly, I can’t decide.) I’m not even counting U.S-Ghana here, which feels like small potatoes compared to some of these. [...]

Italy vs Australia -

Other matches were worse in quanity but the last minute of this match was by far the worse minute. Come on ref… in the last minute of a match you should not be blowing the whistle inside of the box unless there is no doubt that it is a penalty (and when it gets to this level there should be very little doubt). That call made me feel so sick to my stomach. Now Italy took the cup… Of course poor Australia, but also poor Italy. I don’t have as much respect for Italy because of the way they ended up winning this match. The world cup isn’t getting the respect it should be because of this kind officiating.

Is it just me, or did it seem the officiating was pretty good until we started getting into the later rounds? I am not concluding to anything but I have to raise my skepticism of ref’s being legit and not bought.

I am a US citizen and I am a new fan to football because of how epic it is, but for everything to lead up to matches filled with poor officiating and fake injuries kills what could be the largest climax in all sports. And it seems like the announcing has to sign a contract to never say anything bad about the officiating, so it isn’t going to get any better. Huge disappointment for a new fan.

I think the last 10 minutes of the aust v croatia was pretty aweful, 3 yellows + dissalowing a goal because he blew his whistle while the ball was in the box, absolutely terrible.

on netherlands v. portugal, this game was ruined by 1) the dutch trying to injure ronaldo, 2) the portuguese responding. (there was no coming back once that line was crossed). The ref might have called a red against the dutch early on, but to be honest I don’t think that would have stopped the idiocy from both teams.

Italy vs Australia -

What a disgraceful referee call on the 93rd minute. Referee should have picked up on the typical Italian dive over Lucas Neill. It was a game Australia clearly dominated and deserved to win. Thanks FIFA for another awesome world cup. Hopefully next time the refeering will be alot better instead of being star struck of the established teams. I hope FIFA moves towards technology to make doutful or difficult decsions eg Video Ref!!!! Hey even Cricket games have a video ref!!!! Unbelieveable.

Italy vs Australia

Giving Materazzi a red card in the 50′ brutal call that killed the game. Even though Italy was never in danger of loosing the game, even with a man down.

Luckily thr ref redeemed himself by having the guts to call Neill on that brutal attempt to tackle Grosso.

Hi Johnny,

I have got say Johnny you have no idea what you are talking about!! You observsly didn’t even watch the game!! And whats this thing about brutal challenge from Neill. I suggest you get some glasses and look at the reply again buddy. At least Australia made it to the world cup!!