FIFA study: Referees got it 96 percent right
Reuters - Saturday 10 July 2010, 12:32
PRETORIA - Referees were right 96 percent
of the time at the World Cup, according to a study by FIFA's
referees' committee.
The study looked at key decisions such as free-kicks,
penalties and goal decisions but did not examine minor rulings
such as throw-ins.
The data was collected by video examination carried out by
referees committee members and FIFA instructors, Jose Maria
Garcia-Aranda, head of refereeing for the sport's governing
body, told Reuters.
"We are working very hard and we are not surprised with the
results we have gained because the level of refereeing is much,
much better," he said.
"We have been working with the referees for many years, we
have prepared them as well as possible with new technology and
video de-briefing."
It marks the first time that FIFA has released such data on
refereeing performances and while there is no way to compare
with previous tournaments, Garcia-Aranda said he was confident
decision making had improved.
"Even without the formal data we can say that the number of
good, difficult decisions has been up this year," he said.
"We are talking about thousands of decisions made in 62
games, some of them very, very difficult decisions and the vast
majority of them were correct," Garcia-Aranda said, adding that
the 'success rate' was higher than for players taking penalties.
TEVEZ GOAL
There were a number of high profile wrong decisions in the
tournament such as the failure to award England a goal against
Germany when Frank Lampard's shot hit the crossbar and went over
the goalline and the missed offside on Carlos Tevez's goal for
Argentina against Mexico.
Hungarian referee Viktor Kassai, who took charge of the
semi-final between Germany and Spain, said he was not surprised
by the figure of 96 percent correct decisions.
"Top referees figures should be around that, it sounds a
realistic figure to me," he told Reuters.
"The problem always is of course that in a match if you have
200 decisions, if one is wrong and that is a vital one, then
no-one cares about the other 199.
"We are like the goalkeepers who can make ten great saves
but then let in a howler at the end - which gets remembered?
Regardless of the numbers though, we have to aim for faultless
performances."
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