World Cup Blog | Bruce Crumley Taking Advantage of Poor Refereeing subscribe to TIME Printable Version email this story Bruce Crumley: Read all his blog entries

Posted Friday, June 16, 2006; 22.20BST

THOMAS KIENZLE / AP MAN IN THE MIDDLE >>>> Referee Oscar Ruiz from Colombia

First off, referee Oscar Ruiz did such an utterly foul job at officiating the Netherlands-Ivory Coast match that it's almost impossible to figure out which team should be more disgusted with him. The Colombian distributed seven yellow cards — probably two, three max

Previous Entries July 7, 2006 Assessing The Legacy Of Domenec   July 6, 2006 The Runners-Up Final Is Really No Consolation   June 28, 2006 For Fans, Now Comes The Hard Bit   June 27, 2006 All About The Swiss Misses   June 26, 2006 Reading Between The Lines Of The Freebie Press   June 26, 2006 Little (Irritating) Things That Make The World Cup Go Round   June 25, 2006 The Cup's Rough Edges   June 22, 2006 Chilled Out In Dortmund   June 19, 2006 Living It Up In Leipzig   June 18, 2006 Why No Joie de Vivre?   June 16, 2006 Taking Advantage of Poor Refereeing   June 15, 2006 Feeling Let Down By The Giants Of Football   June 14, 2006 Reasons To Be Cheerful for Germany's Win   June 10, 2006 How To Win The Good Conduct Medal   June 9, 2006 Deutschland 2006 Turns Up The Heat

merited. Meanwhile, he left at least two penalties unwhistled, and looked at his shoes ignoring clear-cut fouls, yet stopped play to sanction piddling offenses elsewhere.

The worst part about it, Ruiz doesn't even seem to suffer from the disease that most of the world's worst referees have (ie. they think people pay to see them at work). He actually looked as though he thought he was doing a decent job. Though there's no fair way of changing FIFA's current geographical selection process of referees, there has to be some way of reversing the current problem that sees all the real stinkers make it to the Cup.

Second, where did even mega-savvy European fans get the idea that a pencil-written rule of the game requires attacking teams to chuck away developing scoring opportunities to mark a minute of silence for the injury-faking opponent writhing down field? In the case of a clear or serious injury, fine — the referee can stop the match. Or, if a team that has recovered the ball near its own goal wants to give a downed rival the benefit of the doubt, cool — kick it out. But forget this garbage where entire nations — not just stadiums — start acting as though a team has been swindling drug money by mugging old people when it simply plays on with the logic that an opposing player lying down (occasionally due to injury) is more exceptional to the game than a player being sent off or another leaving due to injury after all replacements have been used up. It happens; play on.

That Dutch fans would get so peeved by the Ivoirians continuing play following Mark Van Bommel's horridly faked foul-cum-injury ploy is amazing. That they'd then start biting the plastic stadium seats in rage shortly after as the confounded Ivoirians actually had to be told by the replacement referee to keep playing while Giovanni van Bronkhost staged his death scene is just insane. No one should be expected to halt play because a rival decides to lie down. Older players still express amazement that it's done even in bad injuries cases these days.

Fans and current players alike have to get a grip on this one — if they don't, attacking teams sacrificing drives will soon be rushing over to carry the stretchers as well.

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