Graham Poll: Peter Crouch targeted by World Cup Referees

When you go through life as a 27-foot tall giant you get pretty used to people staring at you. When you go through life as a 27-foot tall giant who plays football for a high profile team and a high profile country it is natural for people to pay attention, even the referees.

According to Graham Poll, the referee best remembered as issuing three cards to a player during the 2006 World Cup, referees in the tournament were told to pay extra special attention to England’s Peter Crouch.

He told BBC 5live: “Fifa’s head of refereeing said, ‘look at Crouch, he’s a pain and he gets away with a lot. We need to mark him out and look for him’.

“We were shown videos of him. I tried to defend him, being English.”

Poll added: “Before last year’s tournament in Germany, we watched England’s warm-up games.

“We had been out there for two or three weeks before, and it was pointed out the way he used his arms.

Indeed, we’ve all seen the way Crouch uses his arms and frankly it is scary. That said, it seems a tad unfair for referees to be instructed to pay extra attention to a particular player. After all, isn’t it the job of the referee to call the fouls that occur on the pitch, not the ones that have occurred during previous games?