Geoff Hurst, The Hand Of God And The Biggest Rows In World Football
Graham Poll

Copyright

HarperSport

An imprint of HarperCollinsPublisher Ltd. 1 London Bridge Street London SE1 9GF

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First published in September 2009

Copyright © Graham Poll 2009

Graham Poll asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work

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Source ISBN: 9780007313747

Ebook Edition © OCTOBER 2009 ISBN: 9780007343669

Version: 2016-09-19

I appreciate and thank Julia, Gemma, Josie and Harry for their support but dedicate this book to the man who introduced me to football, refereeing and life—Henry James Poll, aka ‘Big Jim’, aka my dad.

Table of Contents

Cover Page

Title Page

Copyright

Dedication

Introduction

1-Reputations on the Line

2-Zidane Heads for the Dressing Room

3-A Big Hand For Maradona

4-Schumacher's Crime of the Century

5-Going by the Book

6-A Tale of Two Penalties

7-Beckham's Hanging Offence

8-The Vegetable Patch

9-Flagging in Japan

10-My German Lesson

Keep Reading

Index

Acknowledgments

Also by Graham Poll

About the Publisher

INTRODUCTION

On 22 June 2006, in the World Cup in Germany, I showed the yellow card to an Australian-born player twice but did not send him off.

in the World Cup in Germany, another referee showed his yellow card twice to an Australian player and did not realize. It was the same mistake, in astonishingly similar circumstances, precisely 32 years earlier—but what happened next was very different.

In my match, Australia versus Croatia in Stuttgart, I showed Josep Simunic two yellows but later sent him off, belatedly, after brandishing a third yellow at him. Hardly a day goes by, still, without my having to hear people making what they think is a joke about it.

In the 1974 game, Australia versus Chile in Berlin, the referee was Jafar Namdar, from Iran. He cautioned Australia’s Ray Richards in the first half and then, six minutes from the end of the game, booked Richards again for time-wasting. Namdar did not get his red card out. Instead, he trotted away, unaware he had now cautioned Richards twice.

Up in the stand, the Welsh referee Clive Thomas was watching. He realized the mistake and made it his business to find a FIFA official to point out what had happened. The official hurriedly told another FIFA man, who dashed down to the side of the pitch and informed the nearest linesman. Cue some frantic flag waving. Eventually, although four minutes had passed since referee Namdar had shown the second yellow card to Richards, he showed him the red.

If only someone—anyone!—had got the message to me 32 years later. If only someone had written a book about World Cup controversies after 1974; perhaps I would have read it, learned, and lived happily every after.

Now I have written that book. I have looked at ten major controversial incidents from different World Cups. I have examined them from a modern perspective, compared them with very recent controversies in the Premier League, and discovered how the game has changed, how refereeing has changed—and how some things have not altered at all.

But this is not a refereeing book. It is a football book, because I am passionate about the game and I hope that this book will enable anyone who shares that passion to notice more of what goes on during games. I hope it helps interpret events with a deeper perception. For example, did petty rivalry between the match officials help Diego Maradona get away with the ‘Hand of God’ goal he punched in against England? And why, when I was refereeing, did I sometimes deliberately give a foul for one team or find a reason to book a player from the other team?

I’ll clear up those and many other mysteries and explode some of the myths of the game as well. Then, the next time the bloke behind you at a match shouts, ‘You don’t know what you’re doing,’ at a ref, you’ll be informed enough to decide whether the spectator is correct!

So that is what this book is. Now let me tell you what it is not. It is not me saying, ‘I wouldn’t have done that,’ or, ‘I would have done it this way.’ After all, who am I to sit in judgement on World Cup referees after what happened to me? But writing this book, and really scrutinizing all the incidents, ancient and modern, has been a learning process for me. I hope reading it is stimulating for you. Anyone interested in football can gain knowledge from looking at its major controversies. By increasing our understanding, we can all enhance our enjoyment of football.

1 Reputations on the Line
THE MATCH

On the one occasion England won the World Cup, the Final swung in our favour because the match officials gave a goal when the ball did not cross the line. I would like to think that now, more than forty years on, the officials would get it right if a similar incident occurred. Yet the thing that scares me is that they might not. The 2010 World Cup Final could be determined by a ‘goal’ that is not a goal, and this time it might be England who lose out.

By stating that modern referees and assistants ought to get it correct, I am not saying that makes me, or any of the current refs, better than the man in charge that day in 1966, Gottfried Dienst. I am not saying that at all. I can understand how and why, in the circumstances of the time, the goal was allowed. But the world has changed and so has refereeing.

It would have been a bit difficult for me to ref the 1966 Final, because it was the day after my third birthday. It was before some of you were born, no doubt. But football folk know that one of England’s goals was among the most dubious ever allowed in a major match.

So let’s go back to the sunny afternoon of 30 July 1966. Wembley was full but the country’s streets were empty. The nation was watching black and white TV coverage of the World Cup Final. An astonishing drama unfolded.

Helmut Haller shot West Germany into the lead after twelve minutes but, seven minutes later, Geoff Hurst headed an equalizer. Then, deep into the second half, Martin Peters scored. It was 2-1 to England. We thought we’d won. But, as the very last seconds ebbed away, the Germans were given a free-kick. George Cohen blocked it but the ball bobbled across the six-yard box…and Wolfgang Webber dived in, feet first, to score. It was 2-2. Extra-time.

Alf Ramsey, the England manager, told his troops, ‘You have won the World Cup once. Now go and win it again’, and eleven minutes into the extra period, Alan Ball galloped down the right and slung in a low cross. It went behind Hurst, who had to stop and turn around, so he had his back to goal when the ball reached him. He controlled it with the inside of his right foot, swivelled around, took a couple of staccato steps and slammed in a shot against the bar. The ball ricocheted down…

On BBC television, Kenneth Wolstenholme described the tense events. ‘Ball, running himself flat. Now Hurst. Can he do it? He has done! Yes! Yes. NO! No. The linesman says No.’ There was a long pause. Then Wolstenholme repeated, in a deflated tone, ‘The linesman says No.’

The little referee, Herr Dienst, bustled over to the much taller linesman, Tofik Bakhramov. No more than three or four words were exchanged. Abruptly, the referee turned towards the halfway line, put his whistle to his mouth and blew. Wolstenholme screamed, ‘It’s a goal! It’s a goal!’ His ecstatic response must have been matched in front rooms and parlours all over England.

The goal was awarded, and it turned the tide of the match emphatically and decisively in England’s favour. Just before the end of the second period of extra-time, as Hurst loped up field one more time, there was some more memorable commentary. Wolstenholme ad-libbed the lines that have become immortal. ‘Some people are on the pitch. They think it’s all over. It is now!’ Hurst had drilled another shot into the German net. It was 4-2. England were champions of the planet.

THE ISSUES

When we consider the controversy over Hurst’s crucial second goal, the remarkable thing is that there wasn’t any. There was no dissent at all at the time. Hurst, who was eventually knighted for his heroics, will tell you that not a single day has passed since 30 July 1966 without someone debating whether the ball crossed the line. But there was no argument during the game. Watching the footage again, the most astounding aspect (apart from the fact that the linesman had a belt and a substantial belly!) was how genteel it all was. Our chaps did not harangue the ref to give the goal. When he did, there was not even a whimper from the Germans.

In the modern game, players have tantrums if throw-in decisions go against them. If the events of 1966 were repeated now, there would be riots. Yet only Webber of Germany and our Roger Hunt ambled over as the referee went to talk to the linesman. Neither player said anything. Once the decision had been made, Webber reached out briefly (as if about to tap the ref on his shoulder from behind and say something), thought better of it, withdrew his arm, meekly jogged into position and readied himself for the restart.

While I was writing this book, I was at a lunch and found myself sitting next to Roger Hunt. I asked him two questions. The first was, ‘Why didn’t you bang the ball in to make sure when it bounced down from the bar?’ People have always pointed to the fact that he did not do so as evidence that he must have believed the ball had already crossed the line. But he said that he couldn’t have got to it in time. A defender nipped in and headed the ball away over the bar. My second question was, ‘Why didn’t the England players and the West Germans crowd around the ref and the linesman?’

He replied, ‘We wouldn’t have dreamed of doing that. It wouldn’t have occurred to us to do that. The referee said it was a goal, so it was a goal.’

There were far fewer TV cameras and, remember, no replays. When something happened during a match, you saw it from one angle at normal speed and nobody was able to review it. So nobody was sure whether the ball had crossed the goal-line or not. Nobody saw the incident again after it had happened—not Wolstenholme, nor any of the media, nor anyone sitting at home. They were forced to rely on an independent arbiter—the linesman—and accept his ruling.

Admittedly, it was not always peace and tranquillity, even in those days. In England’s 1966 quarterfinal, Argentina’s captain, Antonio Rattin, was sent off but refused to leave the pitch for several minutes. Yet mostly, when there was uncertainty about events, players were much more prepared to take the word of the neutral judges—the match officials. Times change. But the role of the referee and assistants has not. They are still merely independent arbiters. It is the attitude towards them that has changed.

That said, it wasn’t a goal! When I talked to Roger Hunt at that lunch in December 2008 he was still unequivocal in his belief that it was, that the ball did cross the line. But the Germans never thought it was a goal, and the day after the Final some newspaper photographs appeared to show the ball bouncing on the line and not over it. Those pictures cast the first shadows of real doubt in this country. Then, months later, a film of the 1966 World Cup was released. It was called Goal!but showed more clearly that it wasn’t a goal. The film included the first slowed-down footage of the ball bouncing down from the crossbar. Since then, as film and television technology has developed, it has become possible to look at the incident frame by frame. Computer simulations of the moment have been created. It wasn’t a goal. It was such an injustice, in fact, that the expression ‘Wembley tor’ has entered the German vernacular. It is used to describe anything undeserved.

The more you look at it, the more difficult it becomes to work out why the linesman convinced himself that the ball had completely crossed the line. It was a brave decision by Tofik Bakhramov, but it was wrong, and a major factor was probably that he was not a specialist linesman. Before 1994, only referees went to World Cups. No linesmen went, so the refs took turns at running the lines. Bakhramov was the top ref in Azerbaijan and would not have operated regularly as a linesman for many years. These days a specialist ‘assistant referee’ would get the job. I know, to my cost, that they can make mistakes as well, but they are much less likely to do so than someone who usually referees and then suddenly has to use the different set of skills needed on the line. We’ll have a look at the linesman’s job in Chapter Two, when we deal with the 2006 World Cup Final and Zinedine Zidane’s sending off. But for now, let’s just agree that being a linesman is something that needs practice—and that Bakhramov was out of practice.

Another difficulty was that the match officials did not share a common language. It was a problem that was apparent throughout the tournament. Jack Taylor, who refereed the 1974 Final, also officiated in 1966 and said, ‘With the shortage of interpreters, referees at early matches [in the 1966 finals] were often unable to give their linesmen proper instructions before going out.’

At the Final, referee Dienst was Swiss and spoke German, some French and a little English. Bakhramov was from Azerbaijan. Because his country was then in the Soviet Union, he became known after 1966 as ‘the Russian linesman’ but he was not Russian and only spoke a few words of Russian. He spoke Azerbaijani.

So consider that prolonged period, after England’s controversial third goal, when commentator Kenneth Wolstenholme believed the linesman had said ‘No’.

Did Bakhramov initially indicate No and then change his mind? Or was there confusion about what he had signalled? What was said in the very brief conversation between the ref and linesman? Did they really converse at all, if they could not speak a common language?

The joke in refereeing circles is that dear old Bakhramov was like those folk you sometimes meet on your travels abroad. You ask, ‘Do you speak English?’ They nod and say, ‘Ye-es’. You ask, ‘Which is the way to the station?’ They nod and say, ‘Ye-es’.

Is it possible that, whatever Dienst had said, Bakhramov would have nodded and said, ‘Ye-es’? Probably not. But it is certainly true that if referees and their assistants do not have a common language then problems can develop. So, since the early 1990s, FIFA, the game’s world governing body, have insisted that all officials at major tournaments speak one language—English. They have to sit English exams. So, although there is an adage about football being a universal language, nowadays the universal language of football is English.

In 1994, FIFA started using a referee and one linesman from the same country in tournament matches. The other linesman was supposed to be someone who spoke their language well. So, for instance, in that year Philip Don, who went on to become my boss as the first manager of the Select Group of professional referees in England, was selected for the World Cup in the United States and Roy Pearson, a miner’s son from Durham, went with him as ‘his’ linesman. It was hoped that the other linesman in their matches would be someone from an English-speaking nation—Canada or Malta, for instance. Yet, in fact, in the two matches Philip was given in the World Cup he had a Finnish linesman in one and a Korean in the other.

By the time the European Championships of 2000 came around, they had sorted that out a bit better and so, when I reffed in that tournament, my assistants were Phil Sharp, from Hertfordshire, and Eddie Foley from the Republic of Ireland. Then, four years later, came the next, logical development. It was decided that, from 2004, every match in major tournaments would have a team of three officials from the same country—a ref and two assistants. In theory that ensures there are no communication difficulties at all.

Now let me tell you more about modern refereeing—and why 21st-century officials probably would not have allowed Hurst’s goal. Let me start with what refs tell their assistants.

Referees, assessors and all reasonable people (so not some TV pundits or certain managers) understand that assistants can’t see everything. Players can obstruct the view, or the assistant might be looking at another area of the field, or have a bad angle. That’s understandable. That’s acceptable. The biggest mistake an assistant can make is to think he has seen something that has not actually happened. Referees don’t want assistants guessing, or reacting to instinct. We want them telling us what they have definitely, clearly seen. So, although all referees have different set speeches, I guarantee that one theme is common in pre-match instructions. The ref will tell his assistants, ‘I’ll forgive you if something happens and you don’t see it, but I don’t want you to“see” something that doesn’t happen.’

Remember—and this applies to referees as well as assistants—if you do not signal for an offence, it does not mean you are saying it did not happen. It just means you didn’t see it. Signalling for an offence indicates that you are certain you saw it. So the key instruction to assistants boils down to this: do not give a decision if there is any doubt in your mind. If that instruction had been given in 1966, our friend Tofik Bakhramov should surely not have given the goal. He must have had doubts.

Something else has changed since 1966 and it has fundamentally altered the way refs and assistants work. At the top of the modern game, match officials wear microphones and ear-pieces to talk to each other. They were introduced first in the English Premiership in time for the 1999/2000 season. Initially, we used to get interference from taxi firms, pizza delivery companies and so on. When you were trying to find out why your assistant had flagged for a foul by Roy Keane at Old Trafford, you would hear crackling instructions for the delivery of a thin-crust pepperoni!

But the equipment got better and, eventually, became extremely reliable. The microphones are kept ‘open’, which means that if either assistant says something, the ref can hear it clearly, and vice versa. So, in my 33 Premier League games in my final season for instance (2006/07), there was no real need for me to go over to an assistant. I could just talk to him via my microphone.

So why is it that, occasionally, a referee does walk over and talk to his assistant? Well, in my case, there were two sets of circumstances when, despite having radio contact, I would go to an assistant. The first was to send a message to the players, crowd, the media and TV audience. By going over to the assistant I was saying, ‘This is a big decision and we are consulting. This is not something we are doing without due consideration.’ I was demonstrating to everyone that the officials were in agreement.

The second circumstance in which I would go over to an assistant would be if a major decision was involved and I was not convinced the assistant had got it right. On those occasions, I wanted to look into his eyes and gauge whether he was calm and sure or panicky and unsure.

So, let me put myself in the boots of Herr Dienst and imagine that the radio communications system had been in use in 1966. As soon as Hurst’s shot bounced down from the crossbar, I would have said into my lip microphone, ‘Was that in?’ Perhaps Bakhramov’s response would have been to prevaricate or to admit that he was slightly unsure. That would have been enough to persuade me not to give the goal. Then I would have gone over to him, talking all the time, saying things like, ‘If we have any doubt, we must not give it. The world will understand if we get it wrong in those circumstances. But if it did not cross the line and we say it did, we are in trouble.’ If it had been me, then when I had got there I would have looked into his eyes. I would have said something like, ‘We know the importance of this decision, so are you absolutely sure the ball crossed the line completely?’ If there was a shred of doubt in the linesman’s mind, he should have shaken his head and we should have restarted play with a corner (because, after Hurst’s shot had bounced down, a German defender headed the ball out of play over the bar).

There is someone else I’d have asked for help in my era but Herr Dienst didn’t have: the Fourth Official. It was in 1991 that Fourth Officials were introduced and sent to games to act as back-up. They also wear microphones and ear-pieces. Their duties include intervening in certain specified circumstances to inform the ref about events on the field. But the Fourth Official is not supposed to tell the ref about things he has spotted on a TV screen which happens to be near him. That’s the theory. In practice, things are different, and that is something else we’ll look at in Chapter Two.

But, for now, just let’s say that I certainly expected help from the Fourth Official if something difficult happened in my matches. I didn’t always get that help, but there you go. Anyway, if I had been confronted by a ‘goal’ like Hurst’s, I would walk very, very slowly towards the assistant referee and say, ‘Did anyone else get a view?’ With that cue, I would expect the Fourth Official urgently to seek a video replay. Then he would say, ‘You can’t tell Pollie.’ Or, more likely, he would say, ‘It’s on the line Pollie. No goal.’ That might not be legal, but it would ensure natural justice was served. Sorry, Sir Geoff. Sorry, England.

That is what a referee who took charge of World Cup matches in 2006 would have done in 1966, but Gottfried Dienst was the best referee of his day, because he was given the World Cup Final. And he did what all referees of that era would have done. So I am not criticizing him at all. I am not in a position to, am I?

As for our mate Bakhramov, well, the Germans have two versions of events. In one, they say that he claimed he thought Hurst’s shot had hit the roof of the net (rather than the bar) before bouncing down. If that is true, then his eyesight was rubbish but there is no evidence that he said that and I don’t think it is plausible that he did. It is much more likely that in the split second he had, and from the angle he had, he thought the ball had bounced down overthe line. I am sure there must have been doubts in his mind. So he should not have said, ‘Ye-es’. He should have said ‘No-o’.

The second German legend is that, when Bakhramov was on his deathbed (he died in 1993) he was asked how he was sure the ball had crossed the line and is said to have replied, ‘Stalingrad’ (a reference to a bloody conflict in the Second World War—in which Germany laid siege to a city in the Soviet Union and there were tens of thousands of civilian casualties). The mere word ‘Stalingrad’ had a deep resonance for anyone from the old Soviet Bloc. The allegation is that Bakhramov was gaining revenge for his people. Again, there’s no evidence that Bakhramov said that and I refuse to believe it.

As someone who was often enraged by unfair allegations about my refereeing, my instinct is to find Bakhramov innocent of German accusations of incompetence or deliberate unfairness.

What I do concede is that there is often a subconscious, subliminal tendency to favour the home team. Deep inside your brain, there is a little half-thought that giving a big decision against a noisy home crowd is difficult. Sometimes in those circumstances you hesitate, just momentarily. And once you have hesitated, you have effectively decided not to give the decision. Referees don’t admit to the general public that this happens but it is only human nature. Good referees acknowledge this subliminal process and guard against it. Was Bakhramov proficient enough to ignore the pressure of the circumstances? Almost certainly not. With England playing at Wembley in the World Cup Final it would have been extremely difficult to give a goal againstthem if the ball bounced down from the crossbar. But it was relatively easy for Bakhramov to give the goal forEngland. I don’t think he was deliberately biased. But it is possible he might have suffered from an unintentional, subconscious bias.

THE REF’S DECISION

One conclusion about 1966 springs from the lack of dissent shown after Bakhramov’s momentous decision. He said it was a goal and, because there were no slo-mo replays, nobody knew any different. It was assumed that the linesman (and the referee) were right. Their decisions were final and were respected. Now, all close calls are disputed and the assumption is that the officials are wrong.

It would be a good thing if more people could remember that, down on the pitch, when nobody knows for certain what happened, everyone has to rely on a neutral arbiter: the ref or his assistant.

Another conclusion to be drawn from the 1966 goal is that some things have improved. As we have seen, language difficulties have been eradicated, specialist assistant refs are used, teams of officials come from the same country and are familiar with working with each other, they are ‘wired for sound’ and instructions to assistants have improved.

But the most worrying conclusion is that it could happen again. A World Cup Final could be decided by a ‘goal’ that is not a goal.

I’d like to think that I, or any modern, experienced, competent referee, would have helped to prevent the assistant from making such an obvious mistake. But you cannot rule out a similar, less blatant error without technology that accurately determines whether the ball has crossed the goal-line. Without technology, it will always be guesswork and there will always be wrong guesses. So, without question or quibble, football should develop and embrace goal-line technology.

As a referee or assistant, you make hundreds of judgements during a game and many of them are only opinions. Did that player handle the ball deliberately? Was that tackle reckless? All you can do is make an honest assessment and give your opinion. If, after the game, you find that some people—perhaps even most people—disagree with your opinion, that’s up to them. You can still travel home content in the knowledge that all you did was give the best opinion you could in the circumstances.

But you also have to make judgements on matters of fact. Was that foul inside the penalty area? Did that shot cross the line? You can be proved right or wrong by television cameras—and if you get a big call wrong, you drive home cursing yourself. Football is about goals, so the biggest call you can make is whether a goal has been scored legitimately. If you get one of those calls wrong, it can eat away at your mind as you drive home.

The two rugby codes, Union and League, use video replays to decide whether tries have been scored legally. Cricket uses video replays for run-outs and has started using the Hawk-Eye computer system when there is an argument about whether the batsman was ‘leg before’ and when a ‘caught behind’ is disputed. Tennis adopted the Cyclops system of judging line calls, and then moved on to use of Hawk-Eye. I did some research on the tennis system for the BBC and found it fascinating that the players accepted Hawk-Eye was not always right. They accepted a certain degree of error from a machine.

Meanwhile, of all the major sports, only football refuses to use technology to solve disputes. We’ve done everything else that is possible, but not the one thing which would prevent mistakes. Nearly every referee I know would welcome accurate, efficient goal-line equipment—a ‘beep’ that announces, yes, the ball crossed the line. Only then could we be sure that a mistake as important as the one that allowed Hurst’s goal to stand would not be repeated.

Without video technology, it is always possible a mistake will be made, and if an assistant referee says he is 100 per cent convinced that the ball has crossed the line, you have to take him at his word and award the goal. A referee has to rely on his assistants and, as old Bakhramov demonstrated all those years ago, sometimes assistants do funny things. As further proof of that, I’d like you to think about a highly contentious incident in the 2008/09 English season. Actually, no, it was not contentious because everyone knows what happened. Inexplicable is a better word. Inexcusable is another one.

On 20 September 2008, a very young referee, Stuart Attwell, awarded a goal to Reading at Watford in the Football League’s top division. His assistant, Nigel Bannister, signalled the goal but should have flagged for a corner.

In the Laws of Football, which are set by FIFA, the game’s world governing body, number ten deals with ‘The Method of Scoring’. It states, ‘A goal is scored when the whole of the ball passes over the goal line, between the goalposts and under the crossbar…’ So the incident had ticked some of the boxes—but not the important bit about between the goalposts! Bannister had been instructed to signal only for things about which he was absolutely certain. He had been told not to ‘see’ things that hadn’t happened. Yet Bannister was convinced that he’d seen a goal scored. For whatever reason, he just had an aberration. When Attwell went over to talk to him, there was confusion between them about the specific moment to which Bannister was referring, but he was a very experienced assistant and he was adamant that a goal had been scored, so the inexperienced Attwell was persuaded by the older man’s certainty.

It was an extreme example—so extreme that, if repeated in a World Cup Final, I bet FIFA would go against their own rules and get a message to the ref to stop the goal being awarded. However, the clear lesson from Reading’s ‘phantom goal’ is that errors do happen and, without video technology, they always will. In a less extreme case—for instance, when a ball bounces almost completely over the goal-line in the goal—it is very, very possible for the assistant and the ref to award a goal wrongly, even in a World Cup Final.

Of course, there would be one big difference if something similar to 1966 happened now—the poor referee will not be like Gottfried Dienst, who was allowed to continue the match without a word of protest and left the stadium unperturbed to get on with his life. Now, as soon as the incident happened, instant replays would be shown in the media areas of the stadium and all around the world. As two great mates of mine, top referees Urs Meier and Anders Frisk, learned to their cost, the reaction to controversial incidents is now extreme. I shall return to them later in this book, because they were very badly treated by ‘fans’ from England.

For now, though, I want to underline this conclusion from our consideration of the 1966 goal: something very similar could happen again. All these years have passed, so much has been improved, yet it could happen again. It could happen in 2010. I find that frightening. And next time, it could be England on the wrong end of a wrong decision.

WORLD CUP STATS: 1966

QUALIFICATION TOURNAMENT: African nations boycotted the tournament because FIFA had stipulated that the continent’s top team should play off against the winners from Asia or Oceana for a place in the finals. The 70 teams that did contest the qualifying tournament were a record. England were given a place in the finals as hosts. None of the other home nations qualified. Germany had been divided into two separate countries after the Second World War. West Germany were among ten European teams in the finals.

FINALS: 11-30 July. The sixteen teams were divided into four groups of four. The top two from each team progressed to the quarterfinals.

HOSTS:England

MASCOT: World Cup Willie (the first World Cup mascot: a lion on his hind legs, wearing a union flag shirt)

FINAL: England 4, West Germany 2 (after extra-time)

MATCHES PLAYED: 32

GOALS SCORED:89

ATTENDANCE:1,635,000

TOP SCORER: Eusebio (Portugal, 9 goals)

HOME NATIONS: England played all their matches at Wembley, which gave them a huge advantage. They started slowly, with a goalless game against Uruguay, and only scored four goals in their group matches. Significantly, they did not concede a goal until the semi-final, in which they beat Portugal. The story of the Final is told in this chapter.

MOURINHO’S GHOST

Down the years since 1966 there have been many, many other controversies about whether the ball entered the goal. One of the most contentious was when Luis Garcia scored for Liverpool against Chelsea in the European Champions League semi-final on 3 May 2005. Did his shot cross the line before Chelsea’s William Gallas hooked it away? The match officials said ‘Yes’. José Mourinho, who was Chelsea’s manager, remains adamant to this day that it was ‘a ghost goal, a goal from the moon’.

I’ve got some history with Senhor Mourinho, but I’ll try to be impartial—as I can assure you and him I always was when I refereed teams he managed. The ref that night at Anfield was Lubos Michel from Slovakia, whom I know well. We were at two World Cups together. He was one of the top men in refereeing and by 2005 he had already been on the international list for a dozen years—and he had refereed a big match involving Mourinho two years earlier. That was the UEFA Cup Final between Mourinho’s Porto and Celtic on 21 May 2003. Martin O’Neill, the Celtic manager at the time, criticized Michel for sending off one of his players and allowing Porto to get away with some time-wasting. Funnily enough, Mourinho had no complaints.

Funnily enough as well, in 2005 he did not comment on what happened immediately before the ‘ghost goal’. Liverpool’s Milan Baros clipped the ball up over the advancing goalkeeper, Petr Cech, but was flattened by him. Garcia nipped in and knocked the ball goal-wards. The assistant referee, Michel’s compatriot Roman Slysko, was well positioned and instantly signalled a goal. Bearing in mind what I’ve told you about referees’ instructions to assistants, we can be sure that Slysko was certain the ball had crossed the line.

But Michel still had to make the decision. I’ve asked him about it. He told me, ‘Either it was a goal—and my assistant was sure it was—or I had to give a penalty against Petr Cech and send him off for denying a clear goal-scoring opportunity. I believe Chelsea would have preferred the goal to count rather than face a penalty and have ten men for the rest of the game.’

So, yes, I’d say justice was done. UEFA, the game’s governing body in Europe, obviously had no problem with either Michel or Slysko. They were appointed together for the 2008 Champions League Final in Moscow. Mourinho had been sacked by then but Chelsea lost that one as well.

You remember that it was William Gallas who hooked away Garcia’s shot. Well, Gallas was the beneficiary of a goal-line decision on 3 November 2007 when he was playing for Arsenal against Manchester United at the Emirates. United were leading 2-1 but, in added time, Gallas shot and United goalkeeper Edwin van der Sar pawed the ball away. Assistant referee Darren Cann was perfectly placed to make a decision and brave enough to do so. He signalled that the ball had crossed the line. He was correct.

It takes courage to make a big decision at a crucial moment, and a very skilled person to get a difficult decision right in those circumstances. I’d cite Cann’s call as the best of the 2007/08 season. To me, that is a perfect illustration of how hard the job of an assistant is.

But, no, they don’t always get it right. And that brings us to the incident involving Pedro Mendes of Spurs and Roy Carroll of Manchester United at Old Trafford on 4 January 2005. Mendes definitely scored a goal for Spurs. But he shot from way out and assistant referee Rob Lewis was 20 yards or so upfield. He could not see when the ball entered the goal. Nor could referee Mark Clattenburg. So, when Carroll clawed the ball away from more than a yard behind the line, everyone played on. Spurs reckon the officials’ mistake cost the London club a place in the Champions League because it robbed them of a win and two points. That is how many they finished behind fourth-placed Arsenal in the table. Mind you, they did drop 51 points in other matches!

Similarly, can Bolton really claim to have been relegated in the 1997/98 Premiership season because of one goal-line decision? Of course not. They only collected 40 points all season. Yet you can understand why they were aggrieved when Everton survived on goal-difference, because earlier in the season, at the Reebok stadium, Gerry Taggart had thought he’d scored for Bolton to beat Everton but referee Stephen Lodge could not see whether the ball had crossed the line and so did not award a goal. That match was on 1 September 1997.

A little under five months earlier, an event occurred which the people of Chesterfield believe was the biggest miscarriage of justice in FA Cup history. On 13 April 1997, Chesterfield, from the third tier of English football, were 2-1 up in the semi-final against Middlesbrough, from the top division. Chesterfield’s Jonathan Howard crashed a shot against the bar and believed that it bounced down over the line. The assistant, Alan Sheffield, thought so as well and signalled a goal. I have explained that referees do not want assistants to ‘see’ things that have not happened, but in this example, the assistant was correct. TV replays showed that the ball was, indeed, over the line. The assistant had the courage of his convictions, signalled and ran back towards the halfway line. Yet referee David Elleray did not award the goal. Middlesbrough fans claimed that Elleray had already blown for a foul against a Middlesbrough player. Elleray denied that. He said he was merely unsighted and so could not award the goal. Sheffield was an international assistant, but Elleray did not take his word for what had happened. The other assistant was Phil Sharp. I asked both him and Sheffield about the incident but they told me they had been instructed by Elleray not to discuss it.

The match ended 3-3. Middlesbrough won the replay. Chester-field’s chance of an historic Final appearance had gone. So don’t try telling anyone in Derbyshire that justice was served.

OUR FINEST REF…AND ME

England’s George Courtney went to the World Cup in 1986 and 1990. He was one of the finest referees this country has ever produced, and a hero to me. But his preparation for those World Cups shows why the system of sending specialist assistant referees to major competitions is an improvement on what used to happen.

Only referees were sent to the World Cups of 1986 and 1990, so George had to take his turns as a linesman. He was a truly great referee, but hadn’t operated regularly as a linesman for years. In the build-up to both of his World Cups, he was given a handful of domestic games as a linesman, to try to re-familiarize himself with the job. But that merely underlines that the authorities accepted that he was out of practice.

George, a lovely man, was the referee in 1991 when I made my first ever international trip. We travelled to Rotterdam, for a Euro 92 qualifier between Holland and Portugal. I was one of George’s assistants and delighted to be chosen, but I was a Football League referee by then and decidedly rusty at running the line.

FACT! WHEN LINESMEN CAME…AND WENT

THE role of linesman is as old as football, but when the game was first played, the linesmen were not neutrals; they were spare players or other people associated with the two teams. That is still the case in much parks football and other ‘grass roots’ matches.

Originally, if a ‘lino’ saw any offence, he stuck up his flag and play had to stop. But the 1891 Laws of Football changed all that and made it clear that linesmen were only there to assist the referee, and that it was the ref who decided when to stop play. The 1891 Laws gave linesmen very limited powers and duties. Four years later, by which time some linesmen were neutral, a new edition of the Laws gave them more responsibility, but again made it clear that they were referees’ helpers.

The title ‘linesman’ was changed to ‘assistant referee’ for the start of the 1996/97 season, partly because there were many more lineswomenby then and partly because the authorities wanted recognition for the fact that linesmen and women were expected to do more to help the ref than just wave their flags from time to time.

FACT! FLAGGING, NOT WAVING

YOU will hear commentators say that an assistant has flagged for offside when it turns out to be for a foul, and vice versa. That’s because they don’t know the different signals.

For a foul, the assistant stands with the flag pointing along the touchline in the direction the free-kick will be taken.

For offside, he (or she) stands with the flag pointing towards the pitch—high in the air if the offside player was on the other side of the pitch, parallel with the ground if the offence was halfway across the pitch, and at an angle with the ground if the offence was on the assistant’s side of the field.

There are other, less conspicuous signals as well, especially at games below the level where there is radio communication. For instance, if an assistant is not sure which way to give a throw-in, he or she will wait until the referee has pointed with a finger or hand—subtly, almost imperceptibly. Then the assistant will not fall into the trap of signalling one direction and being overruled.

If it appears that there is disagreement between the referee and an assistant, there is far more likely to be dissent from players and abuse from spectators, so it is important for officials to avoid appearing to disagree. It is also important to remember that the ref is the one who makes the decisions. So, sometimes, assistants don’t signal for offences. Spectators and commentators will say, ‘The linesman must have seen that.’ But if the assistant knows that the ref has got a good view of an incident, it is not the assistant’s job to signal. It is good practice to leave it to the referee, because he might want to play an ‘advantage’.

YELLOW CARD FOR FIFA

THE fact that Tofik Bakhramov was the top man in Azerbaijan did not guarantee he was especially proficient as a referee, let alone as a linesman. FIFA feel obliged to appoint officials from all over the globe for World Cups, to encourage referees in every country. That means you don’t get the best officials.

If there were no considerations other than assembling the 20 finest refs, you would get eight or ten from Europe and six or seven from South America. Other than a few occasional, outstanding exceptions, the best referees come from countries with top-standard leagues and demanding matches. Yet at World Cups, there are always referees and assistants from smaller footballing nations with limited experience of really big games.

RED CARD FOR PLATINI

THERE have been very successful experiments on football goal-line technology by Hawk-Eye, the company which makes equipment which is accepted in tennis and is used in television coverage of cricket. The experiments, conducted at Fulham and Reading, were proposed by the Premier League and sanctioned by FIFA. Yet, in March 2008, the International Football Association Board (FIFA’s Laws committee) decreed that the experiments must end. They were persuaded by a ‘strongly-worded intervention’ from the president of UEFA, Michel Platini. He believes that, once you introduce any technology at all, you open Pandora’s box.

Platini was a wonderful player for France and Juventus and his election as president of UEFA in January 2007 made him the top administrator in Europe. His election was hailed by football folk because, at last, a former player was to be one of the game’s leaders. But, the next time your team is denied a good goal because the assistant referee did not see that the ball crossed the line, don’t blame the assistant and don’t blame the ref. The person you should blame is Michel Platini.

FACT! NO MORE YES MEN

FROM the year 2000, to reduce ‘Ye-es’ moments, FIFA imposed some additional, standardized instructions for assistant referees.

If the ref signals for a foul near the penalty area and the assistant is sure it wasoutside the box, the assistant should take an exaggerated step towards the halfway line. If the assistant is certain the foul wasinside the area, he should run towards the corner flag.

FIFA do not want referees going over to talk to assistants, because that would look as if the ref is unsure about the decision and the players would surround the officials to have their say.

In my autobiography,Seeing Red, I recount an incident just like that in Euro 2000. I took charge of a match between the Czech Republic and France on 16 June in Bruges. Despite those careful, homogenized instructions on what to do about penalty decisions, I still went over to my assistant, Eddie Foley from Cork, to find out what had happened. We gave a penalty instead of a free-kick outside the area. We got the decision wrong. And UEFA were not happy that I had ignored the directive.

LANGUAGE PROBLEM

Dave Bryan was one of the best assistant referees I worked with, but he had his own ‘66 moment on 3 January 2004, when he signalled for a goal by Watford’s Heidar Helguson against Chelsea. The ball hit the bar and bounced down on—or, according to Dave, over—the line.

He had his language difficulties when he was on foreign trips. On one occasion, at a match in Macedonia, the assessor was German and the officials were English. They included Dave, plus Mike Dean and Steve Dunn, who are big mates of mine. One of them asked the assessor his profession. He said, ‘I am ein doctair. I work with children. I am a paedi…paedi…’

As he struggled for the English word paediatrician, Dave tried to help out. ‘Paedophile?’ he offered, unthinkingly. Steve and Mike fell off their chairs laughing.

YELLOW CARE FOR ROB

THE Mendes-Carroll goal (at Old Trafford on 4 January 2005) was such a blatantly wrong decision that referee Mark Clattenburg and assistant Rob Lewis beat themselves up about it. I spoke to Mark very soon afterwards and told him it wasn’t his fault and that nobody blamed him, but he was very upset because it was so clearly a goal.

Interestingly, though, at the time, Sky television’s commentators were not sure until they’d seen a replay. That is what often happens. Once we’ve all seen a dozen replays of an incident, we convince ourselves that what happened was obvious. Mark and Rob didn’t have any replays and had to go on what they’d seen at the time. The problem was that Rob didn’t give himself a chance of seeing anything much. He went into sprint mode, belting along the line to try to get back closer to the goal, and his head went down as he ran. It is easy to be critical with hindsight, but instead of racing back quite so frantically, Rob should have concentrated on the flight of the ball. So I think there is a good learning point from the Mendes-Carroll goal. It is that there are times when, as a referee or assistant, you have to accept that you must sacrifice proximity for viewing angle.

You have to keep an awareness of what is going on and what might be about to happen, and so you will notice good referees sometimes stop running forwards and take a step to one side to get a better angle. Similarly, an assistant should cover the ground as quickly as possible but while maintaining a good view. The assistant’s two main functions are to watch for offsides and to indicate when the ball goes out of play. As soon as Mendes hit his shot, there was no possibility of an offside and so Rob could and should have concentrated on ‘ball out of play’. With hindsight he knows he should have focused on the ball and the possibility that it would go into the goal.

RED CARD FOR POLL

I HAVE my own reason for remembering the name of the ‘Russian’ linesman, Tofik Bakhramov. As I have explained, he was really from Azerbaijan. The top stadium in that country is named after him. I refereed my first full international match there on 2 April 1997 (not, as some of you might imagine, the day before). I remember clearly that there was a sign showing a picture of a Kalashnikov with a cross through it, instructing everyone to leave rifles outside the stadium. You don’t see that in this country. Not since Millwall moved from the old Den.

I remember clearly that my match in the Tofik Bakhramov Stadium was a World Cup qualifier between Azerbaijan and Finland, and that the home side lost 2-1. What I don’t remember with any clarity is the hospitality afterwards, because instead of the few beers we were hoping for, the officials were given double shots of vodka.

Our hosts kept toasting us. Me and Steve Dunn (who was my Fourth Official again) kept replying to the toasts. Every time we did so, our glasses were refilled. After about 15 double vodkas, we realized that they wouldn’t stop toasting us until we stopped toasting them. By then we could barely walk.

Finland had won the match. If Azerbaijan had won, the toasting would never have stopped. We’d still be there knocking back the doubles. But then all Englishmen should be happy to raise a glass to Bakhramov, the man whose decision won us the World Cup.

FACT! THE THIRD MAN

THE ‘Russian’ linesman and referee Gottfried Dienst are well remembered, but who was the other linesman? He was Karol Galba, from what was then known as Czechoslovakia. He had refereed one match at the 1962 World Cup and went on to be the first president of the UEFA referees’ committee. In 2006, when the new Wembley stadium was being built, a ceremony was held on the pitch to mark the fortieth anniversary of the 1966 Final. Galba, the only surviving match official, attended, along with players from both sides.

2 Zidane Heads for the Dressing Room
THE MATCH

Was video evidence used to ‘convict’ the world’s greatest player in the world’s biggest fixture? That is the question I find myself asking the more I think about the 2006 World Cup Final.

The best player in the world? That was Zinedine Zidane. He’d won that title three times. He also won the World Cup with France, in Paris in 1998, and the European Championship two years later. He helped Juventus to two successive European Champions League finals and became the world’s most expensive player when he joined Real Madrid for 76 million euros. He scored the winning goal when the Spanish club won the Champions League. It was a remarkable career and it was to have an extraordinary conclusion.

In May 2006 he announced that he would retire after that year’s World Cup. So, when his beloved France reached the Final, it meant that the finest footballer on the planet was going to play his last competitive match in the globe’s biggest game. Nobody of his stature had ever chosen such a prestigious stage for his last bow. But, on the day, he made his exit as the villain, sent off for violent conduct. What an incredible story.

Yet is the full story even more intriguing? Like many others in refereeing circles, I cannot help wondering whether the officials used video technology against Zidane in Berlin’s Olympiastadion on 9 July 2006. If I had been the referee or the Fourth Official in those precise circumstances, then I would have wanted to get it right. And if that meant using a TV replay to check what had happened, so be it. Did the men in charge of the match do that? Has technology already been used in the world’s most important fixture?

What we can say for certain is that if ‘Zizou’ had been able to control his temper as well as he could control a football then none of this would be an issue. If he had been able to keep his head, instead of using it as a weapon, he might well have provided a much more fitting finish to his peerless career. He was the captain of France and there is a real possibility that he could have completed his playing days by lifting the World Cup. Instead, the last sight of him as a professional footballer was as he walked past the trophy on his way back to the dressing room after being sent off.

The 2006 World Cup Final pitched France against Italy and the two players who were to feature later in the most controversial confrontation each scored in the first 20 minutes. In fact, those two men, Zidane and Marco Materazzi, were both involved in the first goal, after seven minutes. It was Materazzi who fouled France’s Florent Malouda (although there was only the most minimal contact) and it was Zidane who converted the penalty to put France ahead.

Zidane being Zidane, the penalty was a bit special. As goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon sprawled to his right, expecting a normal, hard shot, Zidane chipped the ball and sent it forwards and upwards in a slow parabola. Buffon was already on the floor long before the ball lazily clipped the underside of the bar and bounced down. He clambered up, turned around, and grabbed the ball but there was no need for an Azerbaijani assistant referee to decide that it had clearly crossed the line.

Thirteen minutes later, Materazzi equalized, leaping two feet higher than his marker to head home an Andrea Pirlo corner, and it was still 1-1 after 90 minutes.

Fourteen minutes into extra-time, goalkeeper Buffon tipped a Zidane header over the bar, but the French captain’s next, and last, contribution to the beautiful game was a moment of ugly bad temper. Angered by something Materazzi said to him, Zidane head-butted the Italian defender in the chest. It was a belting butt. Materazzi went down like a felled tree. He was hurt, no doubt, but probably also stunned—and so was the watching world when TV showed the astonishing incident. But that didn’t happen straightaway. It was an off-the-ball clash and TV coverage was following the ball. So there was quite a lot of confusion until a replay of the incident made it apparent that Zidane deserved to be sent off.

There was confusion as well for the referee, Horacio Elizondo from Argentina. He had also been concentrating on the ball and hadn’t seen the head-butt. It is how he learned that Zidane deserved to be sent off that fascinates me. That is what is still discussed and debated in refereeing circles. But, for now, let’s just say that Elizondo did get the message and did show Zidane the red card. For me, watching at home, the sight of the best player I ever refereed walking back to the dressing room and passing the World Cup, where it stood on a plinth waiting for the presentation ceremony, was one of the saddest moments I can remember; sad for a player I admired so much and sad for football.

There were no more goals. So, for only the second time, the World Cup Final was decided by penalties. Materazzi took Italy’s second spot-kick, and scored. David Trezeguet, the man whose goal gave France victory over Italy in the Final of Euro 2000, was the only player not to score his penalty. His kick hit the crossbar, landed on the goal-line and bounced out. Again, no Azerbaijani assistant was needed. It was not a goal. Italy won the penalty contest 5-3, and with it their fourth World Cup.

THE ISSUES

I am intrigued by what happened after the clash between Zidane and Materazzi. But what happened immediately before it, and provoked it, has also been the subject of controversy ever since.

France were attacking. Both men were standing in the Italian penalty area with their backs to the goal. The Italian was immediately behind the Frenchman and, as happens more often than not in modern football, grabbed hold of him. He stretched his right arm around in front of Zidane and grabbed a handful of shirt at about—if you’ll pardon the expression—nipple height.

The attack broke down, the ball sailed forward over their heads, Materazzi let go of Zidane and both men strolled forward towards the halfway line. Words were exchanged. Both men agree about the beginning of the exchange. They concur that, when Materazzi had hold of Zidane, the Frenchman said, ‘If you want my shirt that badly, I shall give it to you after the match.’ What was said next has been disputed, and Materazzi won damages from a British newspaper which alleged, falsely, that he used a racist expression. So let’s accept Materazzi’s version, which appeared in his autobiography.

Materazzi wrote that he was upset by Zidane’s tone, which the Italian felt implied he was not worthy of receiving such an important shirt. ‘Because I was annoyed by his arrogance, I replied, “Preferisco la puttana di tua sorella” (I would rather have your whore of a sister).’

Nice. So Zidane turned, put his head down like a bull about to charge, and rammed Materazzi with it.

After the match, whenever the sending off was shown on television, you saw Zidane head-butt Materazzi and then referee Elizondo sprinting over and brandishing his red card. But that was an edited clip and not how it happened. One minute and thirty seconds passed between the violent conduct and the red card, and it is what happened during that minute and a half that intrigues me.

The referee did not see the incident. Neither did either of the assistants. That much was agreed afterwards and, anyway, if the ref had seen the head-butt, he would have stopped play at once and sent off Zidane much sooner. Similarly, if an assistant had seen it, he would have flagged straightaway, pressed the buzzer on his flag to alert the ref and have spoken into his lip microphone, saying something like, ‘Stop play! There’s been a head-butt.’ We know that didn’t happen.

Play went on briefly and only stopped when referee Elizondo awarded a free-kick to France near the halfway line for an entirely different, minor incident more than 30 metres away from the head-butt. At that point, Elizondo became aware of Materazzi flat out on the grass and ran over to him. The ref did not talk to Zidane at all, but called on the trainer to deal with the injury. Players milled around. Buffon, the Italian goalkeeper, came out of his area to join in and made a gesture to the nearest assistant referee, pointing at his own eye as if to say, ‘You must have seen that.’ Eventually Elizondo jogged over to that assistant and had a very, very brief conversation. Neither man said more than four or five words. After that, Elizondo sprinted back to Zidane and sent him off.

The next day FIFA released a statement. The crucial part said, ‘The incident was directly observed [i.e., without the use of a monitor] by Fourth Official Luis Medina Cantalejo from his position at the pitchside, who informed the referee and his assistants through the communications system.’

That authorized version of events was important to FIFA because they were, and are, stubbornly opposed to the use of video replays or similar technological help for referees. FIFA’s position is that it is a Pandora’s box which must never be opened. Their belief is that if you allow the use of technology to help decide whether the ball has crossed the goal-line for a goal, for instance, then the pressure would increase to use slow-motion replays to review penalty decisions, sendings off, offsides…and almost everything.

I have asked myself what I would have done. That is what referees usually think when something controversial happens in a football match. It’s part of the learning process, part of the self-appraisal that goes on all the time. Sometimes, as well, you have a special reason for putting yourself in the shoes of the ref. For instance, when I was sent home early from Euro 2000, I could not help calculating that, if I’d stayed and things had gone well, my last match would probably have been the semi-final between France and Portugal. So I watched with special interest when that match ended in incredible drama. There was a handball on the line in extra-time. It led to a sending off and a penalty—and the spot-kick won the match for France because the ‘golden goal’ rule applied at the time (the first goal scored in extra-time won the match). I sat and watched that all unfold and kept thinking, ‘Blimey! I might have had to give those critical decisions.’

And again on 9 July 2006, as I watched the World Cup Final on TV at my home in Tring, Hertfordshire, I had an additional reason for putting myself in the place of the ref—because, if I had not made my three yellow cards mistake, it might have been me refereeing the Final. So, yes, I thought what I would have done—what I should have done—if I had been the ref. And if I had been the referee, I hope I would have prevented the confrontation between Zidane and Materazzi.

As you run back following play, you are sometimes aware of men having a go at each other. You get a feel, a sense, of things like that from the body language, from the circumstances and from experience. Then, you ask yourself whether you can trust them not to let their squabble get out of hand. If the answer is, ‘No’, then you stop play, go over and say, ‘Lads, have you got a problem?’ You manage them and the situation, and it all blows over.

Referee Elizondo didn’t do any of that, so perhaps he saw nothing untoward as he ran away from the Italian area. So what about the assistant? Again, sitting at home, I put myself in his position. As the assistant, I would be very grateful to the referee. It was the ref who was selected for the World Cup, so I would know I owed my role on the big day to him and would be in his debt for the rest of my life. I would certainly want to repay him by assisting him to the very best of my ability and by trying to ensure that the match passed without any mistakes. So I would have been very disappointed with myself if I’d missed the head-butt.

The assistant’s job, as the ball was cleared, was to consider whether there was likely to be an offside if the ball was pumped back into the box. He needed to be in line with the second last defender (the last defender was the goalkeeper, don’t forget). And the assistant should have been looking along the line of players. Like the referee, he too should have had a sense, a feeling, when something was about to kick off. Yet, according to FIFA’s statement, it was only the Fourth Official who saw the head-butt.

So I put myself in the shoes—boots rather—of the Fourth Official, Luis Medina Cantalejo, with whom I’d spent some time during my period at that World Cup, and who I liked very much. We went on a couple of bike rides together, to break the monotony of life in ‘camp’ and to help maintain our fitness. He was a good thinker and an interesting talker. He was an upright, very correct man and very experienced. I would have been absolutely delighted if he had been my Fourth Official for any match, including the World Cup Final.

The Fourth Official does not have much to do. One of his duties is to tell the ref if the same player has been cautioned twice but not sent off (as if!). He might also notify the referee if there is a minor altercation between a couple of players. In those circumstances, he would not intervene immediately, but when there is a stoppage he’d say to the ref, ‘You might like to have a word with Zidane and Materazzi. They were at it a minute ago.’ That is good, supportive work from the Fourth Official, quietly helping the referee. But Zidane’s head-butt was much more serious than that and demanded a more vigorous response.

One of the three games my friend Luis had refereed in the 2006 World Cup was the match on 26 June between Italy and Australia—in which he sent off Materazzi. In the Final, if he had seen that same man floored by the world’s greatest player, do you suppose he would have sat around twiddling his thumbs? If it had been me, I would have been straight on my lip mike and said, ‘I say Horacio, there’s been violent conduct out of your view’—or words to that effect. Yet one minute and thirty seconds elapsed after the head-butt while the players were milling around the stricken Italian and Zidane. And, sitting at home in Tring, I thought, ‘Nobody saw it! Nobody can have seen it!’

Perhaps Luis had been doing some paperwork, or talking to the FIFA delegate—as you do—when the head-butt happened. Perhaps he saw something in his peripheral vision, looked up and saw Materazzi on the floor. In those circumstances, I would have expected my experience to have told me from Zidane’s posture that he was the culprit. I would have said to the assistant referee, ‘Did he just hit him?’ And I would have looked at the TV monitor near me for a replay, urgently.

I believe that if I had been the Fourth Official it would have been right to turn to look at the TV, in terms of natural justice and the spirit of football. Zidane and I had a good relationship and I loved refereeing matches in which he played. But he deserved to be sent off against Italy in the World Cup Final. If he had escaped punishment, the World Cup would have ended in farce, because everyone would have known that there had been a major injustice. And think of the implications if, after getting away with his crime, Zidane had scored the winning goal. Certainly, at the time, implications like that would have been going through the minds of every FIFA man and woman at the Final.

At home in Tring, I put myself in all the refereeing roles. I played out all the scenarios in my mind. In my versions, they all ended with the Fourth Official using the TV replay.

THE REF’S DECISION

What I conclude from the 2006 Final is that, despite FIFA’s protestations about not allowing video replays, technology or anything to intrude on the sanctity of the referee’s decision-making on the pitch, there are times when a more pragmatic approach is called for.

The alternative view is that it would be OK to allow a serious error to be made in a World Cup Final—a mistake which would be known by anyone and everyone watching a television, but not by the referee out there in the middle of the pitch.

Think about the two most flagrant examples of mistakes about goals of recent years, both considered in the previous chapter. They were Reading’s ‘phantom goal’ at Watford on 20 September 2008 (when the ball went wide of the posts yet a goal was awarded) and the incident involving Pedro Mendes of Spurs at Old Trafford on 4 January 2005 (when his shot clearly entered the goal but no goal was given). If something like either of those were to happen in a World Cup Final, surely FIFA should ensure that the Fourth Official was aware of it and that he alerted the referee straightaway, even if that meant not sticking rigidly and pedantically to their rules about using TV replays.

My contention is that FIFA would be sensible and put the credibility of their competition ahead of a narrow-minded adherence to rules. Violent conduct that the referee misses should not be allowed to go unpunished, just as Zidane did not get away with it in 2006. I also believe, 100 per cent, that FIFA should prevent a reoccurrence of what happened to me in 2006—and I suspect that they will never let it happen again.

I accept total responsibility for showing my yellow card three times to Croatia defender Josip Simunic, instead of sending him off after two. But if it happens again to some other poor sap, and if, as in my case, neither of the referee’s assistants nor the Fourth Official realizes, then someone with access to the television coverage will respond. A message will be sent to the Fourth Official, and, through him, to the ref. I am convinced about that, because my mistake caused FIFA such embarrassment.

I have another conclusion from the Zidane scenario and it is this. If we can envisage situations when FIFA would be forced to consult TV replays (even if they look at them surreptitiously) then why pretend otherwise? Why do they say, not only ‘No technology’ but also ‘No experiments on technology’? Why do nothing, when they could really do something open and helpful? It is madness.

WORLD CUP STATS: 2006

QUALIFICATION TOURNAMENT: This was the first World Cup in which the holders were not given automatic qualification to the finals. Germany were guaranteed a place as hosts but 198 teams contested the remaining 31 places.

FINALS: 9 June to 9 July. The thirty-two teams were divided into eight groups of four. The eight group winners and the eight group runners-up qualified for three rounds of knockout matches which produced two finalists.

HOSTS: Germany

MASCOTS: Goleo (A lion wearing a Germany shirt with the number 06) and Pille (a talking football)

FINAL: Italy 1, France 1 (after extra-time), Italy won 5-3 on penalties

MATCHES PLAYED:64

GOALS SCORED: 147

ATTENDANCE: 23,353,655

TOP SCORER: Mirolsav Klose (Germany, 6 goals)

HOME NATIONS: England, the only home nation to reach the finals, did so as winners of their qualifying group. In Germany they were unconvincing in wins against Paraguay and Trinidad and Tobago (the smallest country ever to have reached the finals). A draw against Sweden was sufficient for England to top their group again, however, and they were 1-0 winners in the round of 16 match against Ecuador. In their quarterfinal they were beaten on penalties by Portugal.

YELLOW CARD FOR THE LAW

WHAT do the Laws of the Game say about Fourth Officials? Nothing at all. They are not mentioned in the 17 actual Laws. But there is a page devoted to them in the additional information section in the booklet of the Laws of the Game. It says, the Fourth Official ‘must indicate to the referee when the wrong player is cautioned because of mistaken identity or when a player is not sent off having been given a second caution, or when violent conduct occurs out of the view of the referee and assistant referees.’

Note that it does not say that the Fourth Official has to see the violent conduct with his own eyes. There is nothing in the letter of the Law which stipulates that the Fourth Official cannot consult a TV replay. In fact, there is nothing anywhere in the Laws, or in any of the additional information, which mentions TV replays at all, let alone specifically precludes their use.

SLOW WAY TO SUCCEED

Zinedine Zidane’s jibe about giving his shirt to Marco Materazzi started the verbal exchange which ended with the Italian flat on the floor, but the Frenchman gave me one of his shirts without a fight—although not without some shameless begging on my part. I tell the story inSeeing Red, so now let me just say that the shirt is on the wall of my study in my home, in Tring, in Hertfordshire (guarded by Toffee, our dog, in case you were wondering).

I am immensely proud to have that shirt because, regardless of how his career ended, ‘Zizou’ was a wonderful player. I am proud of the fact that I was considered good enough to referee several games in which he took part. I am very lucky that I was able to see his sublime skills at close hand.

It is said that great players have more time on the ball and in my experience that is certainly true. In Zidane’s case, the extra time came from his anticipation, his speed of thought and his great technical ability. Before a pass reached him, he had already looked and thought ahead. He knew what he would do when the ball got to him. And when it did reach him, there was no fumbling or dithering. His first touch was sufficient to control the ball or to move it on in the direction he wanted it to go.

All of that meant that, although the modern game is played at a frenetic pace, Zidane had an unhurried tranquillity. When he wasn't nutting people, of course.

Good referees also try to give themselves time. They try to anticipate where and when incidents will happen, and try to think in advance about giving themselves a good view of those incidents. Then, when something happens, they try to give themselves a moment to think before reacting.

THE RELUCTANT VIEWER

The 2006 World Cup Final in Berlin was the one I might have refereed and then became the one I didn't want to watch.

I certainly didn't expect to referee it, or even allow myself to hope I would, but I now know that, if I had not made my infamous mistake with three yellow cards, there was a strong possibility that I might have been selected for the Final. Instead, I was sent home before the quarterfinals and was in such terrible, black despair that I did not think I would watch any of the remaining games. I didn't think I would be able to bear watching. But people—friends and family—said, ‘You were there. You were part of that tournament. You've got no reason not to see how it finishes.’

And the day I got back from Germany to the safe harbour of my home in Tring, the very first telephone call I received was from David Beckham. The England captain was preparing for a World Cup quarterfinal but took time to telephone me, empathizing with me in my desperate unhappiness and reaching out in friendship to me and my family. So I decided I definitely wanted to see Becks and the boys in action against Portugal.

Having been in Germany, where the people had been fantastic and the atmosphere fabulous, I was conscious of an overriding sense that the Germans were going to win. The World Cup was a statement of nationhood for the united Germany, and winning it seemed to be their destiny. I decided I definitely wanted to see their quarterfinal against Argentina. Then I realized I wanted to watch Italy against Ukraine, because I've always loved Italian football. And of course I wanted to watch France against Brazil, because those countries have produced some of the best players to walk the earth.

So that was all the quarterfinals I had to watch, and by the time the Final came around, I was hooked on the beautiful game again and the great unscripted drama of the World Cup.

THE FIRST AND LAST REFEREE

The referee who sent off Zinedine Zidane in the 2006 World Cup Final, Horacio Elizondo from Argentina, was also in charge of the tournament's opening match, and that was remarkable.

The man who does the opening game (which is itself regarded as a great honour) has never before been given the Final as well. In fact, if you get the opening game, it is usually a clear indication that you are not going to get the Final.

When the referees all reported for duty in 2006, Mario van der Ende, one of the FIFA referees' committee guys from Holland, asked me what games I hoped to get. I said, ‘The opening game would be nice.’ His reply was, ‘Why would you want that one? That would mean that you won't do the Final.’

Those in the European delegation were quite pleased when Elizondo from Argentina was appointed for the opening game. They believed that if a South American had been given that fixture, it was more likely that a European would get the Final. That was the logic. That was the politics.

Yet Elizondo did the first and last games in 2006. He did something else as well: he refereed England's quarterfinal against Portugal and sent off Wayne Rooney. In all, he refereed five games. Again, that was unheard of before 2006.

I had not met Elizondo, I don't believe, before we met up during the tournament, and even then we didn't bump into each other very often. His English was very, very poor and he tended to stick with the guys who spoke Spanish. I do know that he was a PE teacher, was the same age as me and that he retired from refereeing soon after the World Cup Final.

That last fact interests me. Elizondo retired six years before he needed to because he had achieved all his goals. That makes me think that my dad was right when he said that what happened to me in Germany made no difference to my retirement. Whether I had messed up (as I did) or refereed the Final (as I might have done) I would have had the same feeling—that my race was run—and would have stopped refereeing at the same time.

FACT! RULES NOT FIT FOR PURPOSE

THE Fourth Official for the 2006 Final was, as I have said, Luis Medina Cantalejo. Liverpool supporters should know that name, because he was the man who gave their team a controversial penalty for a foul on Steven Gerrard in the last seconds of a Champions League match against Atletico Madrid in 2008.

He went to the 2006 World Cup because another Spaniard, Mejuto Gonzalez, was ruled out when one of the assistants in his team failed the fitness test. If FIFA had been selecting the top referees in the world, without worrying about giving every federation a share, then Luis would have been chosen in the first place. But imagine the disappointment for Gonzalez, after all the years of working and hoping, to be denied the chance to officiate in a World Cup because someone else was not fit.

YELLOW CARD FOR FOURTH OFFICIALS

AS mentioned previously, the role of the Fourth Official was only introduced in 1991. Before that time, there were reserve officials named for major matches but they played no part at all unless the referee or one of his linesmen (as they were then) suffered illness or injury.

A lot of people question the need for Fourth Officials, and to some extent I understand and share their doubts. Do we really need a guy to hold a board up to show the numbers of substitutes and how many minutes are being added on by the referee at the end of each half? Why can't that information be displayed on the big screens at most grounds?

Similarly, does the Fourth Official really have to keep jumping up to enforce the rules of the technical area—that there is only one person from each team standing in his area at any one time, and so on? All that policing the technical areas achieves is to aggravate the managers and fans and make the Fourth Official seem like a busybody. In theory, the Fourth Official is supposed to watch for and report any ‘improper conduct’ by managers and coaches, but so much of that goes on at every game that most is not reported.

I hated being the Fourth Official. You travel up to a hotel the night before the match, yet you know you are not one of the main officials. It's like being the substitute goalkeeper: you get all the kit on but then sit there knowing you don't have a proper part to play. It's very frustrating.

I don't think some other referees were too keen having me as their Fourth Official. It was all right if it was a really big game—say Arsenal against Manchester United—because then the referee concerned would be a top man and would not have a problem with me being there. He would know that I would sort out anything that really needed sorting in the technical area and let him get on with his job.

The problems arose sometimes when, in common with other senior match officials, I was appointed Fourth Official to mentor a young ref. Then the managers would sometimes talk to me instead of him, and that was not helpful. On one occasion, I was Fourth Official to Matt Messias at Derby versus Coventry. Matt was very young and trying out for the Premier League. During the game I tried to encourage him with thumbs-up gestures and positive body language. But one of the Coventry coaches was less impressed than I was and filled in a sub card and handed it to me. It said, ‘Player off: Messias. Player on: Poll’.

When I was refereeing matches, I tried to make good use of the Fourth Official. He changed in the ref's room with me and the assistants, attended all the pre-match briefings, got miked up and so on, and was part of the refereeing team. But I didn't have him warming up with me and the two assistants. That was partly because there was no point and partly because he was more use staying in the refs room. That was where the phone would ring if anyone wanted to contact me about something, like delaying the kick-off because of trouble outside the ground. That was also where he could deal with late administrative stuff, like changes to the team-sheets if a player was injured during the warm-up.

When the time came for me to brief my team, my instructions to the Fourth Official would be, ‘Don't be too pedantic. Don't be too picky. But make sure the managers let the assistant on their side of the pitch get on with his duties without any hassle.’

For me, that was and is the prime value of a Fourth Official: he takes the stick from angry managers instead of the assistant referee, who would otherwise get it in the ear as the nearest available man in black (or green, or yellow).

For matches abroad, I had a big say in who was the Fourth Official. The procedure was that UEFA or FIFA would inform the English FA that I had been appointed for such and such a match, and then the FA would appoint the two assistants and the Fourth Official. The FA knew that we would be away together for three days, and that it would not be a good idea to send a team of officials who didn't get on with each other. The FA knew who I was friendly with and, more importantly, whose company I did not enjoy. In case they were in any doubt, I blackballed a couple by saying, ‘don't put them on trips with me’.

You can't only take your mates though. Going abroad as a Fourth Official is a chance to learn and get experience, so when I was a senior ref I was sometimes asked to take someone on his way up.

On the whole though, I think the Fourth Official function is fraught with difficulties—not least in circumstances such as the Zidane scenario. The choice for Luis Medina Cantalejo in Berlin at the World Cup Final might have been to ignore the letter of the law or ignore a head-butt. That cannot be right.

And consider, once again, the ‘phantom goal’ awarded to Reading at Watford (on 20 September 2008). There was no television monitor in the technical areas that day. The rules had been changed at the start of the season for the Premier League and Football League to stop managers seeing mistakes by referees and immediately confronting them about them.

Watford manager Aidy Boothroyd, standing next to the Fourth Official, saw with his own eyes that the ball had gone nowhere near the goal. The Fourth Official decided, properly according to the Laws, not to say anything to referee Stuart Attwell. Later in the game, however, Boothroyd, who was understandably still incensed about the ‘goal’, said something rude about a throw-in decision and the Fourth Official said he would report him. Boothroyd replied, ‘Oh, you couldn't tell a ref about a goal that wasn't, but you can tell the ref about that all right, can't you?’ The Fourth Official did report Boothroyd, who was sent to the stand by the ref.

MORE RED CARDS FOR ZIDANE

AFTER his sending off, but before the end of extra-time and before the penalties were taken, there was an announcement over the public address system at the stadium which summed up the paradoxical Zinedine Zidane. It was announced that he had won the Golden Ball award for the World Cup's best player. The award was determined by a vote of journalists at the Final. The votes were collected at half-time, and by the time the count had been conducted, Zidane was back in the dressing room in disgrace and those same journalists were compiling reports which condemned him for resorting to violence. That conflict, between celebrating Zidane's skills and castigating him for savagery, was a constant throughout his career.

If we start to play the role of amateur psychologists, there is a danger we will make assumptions that are not accurate. But it must be right that Zidane's childhood helped shape the man he became, so we have to record that he was the youngest of five children born to immigrant parents in a housing project in a rough part of Marseille. Football, played beautifully, was his escape route from that tough start, but did he take some of the instincts of a street fighter with him?

Vinnie Jones, now known for acting as a ‘baddie’ in films, really was a baddie when I was refereeing. He probably had the reputation as the hardest player of my era and was sent off 13 times. Zidane was sent off a total of 14 times.

The Scottish referee Stuart Dougal set some kind of record by sending off both Zidane and the Dutchman Edgar Davids in the same Juventus Champions League match in 2000. It is not every ref who red cards two of the best players of the world in the same evening. Zidane's sending off was for a retaliatory head-butt. At least two of the French-man's other dismissals were also for head-butts. One was for stamping on an opponent. So perhaps we should not have been so shocked that he erupted with fury in the World Cup Final. In some ways, it was an entirely appropriate way for his career to end because it was in keeping with what had gone before.

But this complicated man, who could be so violent towards opponents, could bring a football under control with the deftest, gentle touch and was capable of great artistry on the football pitch. Bixente Lizarazu, who played with him for Bordeaux and France, said, ‘When we didn't know what to do, we just gave the ball to Zizou and he worked something out.’

From the back streets of Marseille came the most expensive player in the world. He won league titles in Italy and Spain. He won the World Cup and the European Championship. He was FIFA's world player of the year three times. His two goals as France won in 1998, together with his penalty in 2006, mean that he scored in two World Cup Finals. Yet his last act as a pro was to head-butt an opponent.

3 A Big Hand for Maradona
THE MATCH

Like Zinedine Zidane, Diego Armando Maradona grew up in a humble family and went on to become the pre-eminent player of his generation. Some will tell you that Maradona was the greatest of all time. But, as with Zidane, it is impossible to assess the Argentine without factoring in an offence committed at a World Cup—and I am an England fan, so you know where I stand. As far as I am concerned, the notorious ‘Hand of God’ goal against England during the 1986 World Cup disqualifies Maradona from inclusion alongside Pele and Johan Cruyff in the very top bracket of the best ever to have played the game. And, from a modern perspective, the way Maradona cheated that day asks some questions for referees and for the game itself. So let's get in the time machine again. Set the dial for 1986.

In Mexico, the 13th staging of the World Cup finals involved three teams from the United Kingdom. Scotland were eliminated at the group stage, losing to Denmark and West Germany and gleaning their single point from a goalless game against Uruguay. Their only goal in three matches was scored by Gordon Strachan. Northern Ireland were also knocked out with just one point, although their group included Brazil and Spain, and they did finish above Algeria.

England, meanwhile, stuttered along unconvincingly until, on 11 June, a Gary Lineker hat-trick gave them victory against Poland. That made them group runners-up behind Morocco and saw them through to the first knock-out stage, the ‘round of 16’. England did not appear to be in the sort of form to worry anyone, least of all Argentina, who breezed through their group with two wins and a draw, and for whom Maradona was living up to his pre-tournament billing as a major talent.

But England were getting into their stride at the right time and two more goals from Lineker and one from Peter Beardsley saw them ease past Paraguay 3-0 (in Mexico City on 18 June) to set up a quarterfinal against Argentina, 1-0 winners against Uruguay. The three other quarterfinals all went to penalties. The attendance for England's quarterfinal in the Aztec Stadium in Mexico City (on 22 June) was an astonishing 115,000. The fateful moment came after 51 scoreless minutes.

England had just dealt with one attack and most players were still in our half. Maradona, dropping deep, took possession about 40 yards from our goal, about ten metres in from our right touchline, and started motoring forwards. Two rows of England players were stationed in front of him and Glenn Hoddle stepped forward from the ranks to close him down. The little Argentine simply swayed away to his right and left the future England coach stranded. As Barry Davies said on the BBC television commentary, with a tone of mounting concern, ‘Maradona just walked away from Hoddle.’

Peter Reid, playing left midfield, ran back and across but the ArgentineD/B/A KENNEBEC BEHAVIORAL HEALTH's acceleration had carried him away before Reid got there. Three defenders came out from the edge of the penalty area to try to deal with the obvious and increasing threat but they too were left marooned out of position as Maradona, now equidistant between the two sidelines, used his left foot to stab the ball to his right towards a team-mate, Jorge Valdano, who was standing inside the D of the penalty area, with his back to goal.

Valdano's attempt to control the pass sent the ball spiralling upwards. The player marking him, Steve Hodge, stuck up his left leg and miskicked the ball higher into the air and back towards his own goalkeeper, Peter Shilton. Maradona had continued his run, hoping for a one-two with Valdano. Shilton came out to punch away Hodge's miscued attempted clearance. Maradona arrived at the same time as the ball. Up went Maradona. Up went Maradona's left arm. Cue pandemonium.

Maradona used his clenched hand to flip the ball up and over Shilton's attempted punch and into the goal. Maradona immediately started celebrating but, at first, none of his team-mates joined in. So he waved them towards him. Shilton pointed to his own arm, in a gesture that the watching world knew meant, ‘Handball!’ The goalkeeper sprinted out to the referee to protest and other England players joined him. But the ref had already signalled a goal and the goal stood.

Four minutes later, Maradona scored a second goal, one of the best ever seen in a major match. Watching it again now, you wonder whether you're playing the clip in fast mode. Maradona had his back to our goal when he gained possession inside his own half but a trail of flailing defenders was left like flotsam in his wake as he span around and just kept running before beating Shilton legitimately. Lineker collected a goal for England ten minutes before the end, his sixth of the tournament. But Argentina won 2-1. They beat Belgium in the semi-final, and then, in front of another 115,000 crowd at the Aztec (on 29 June), Argentina beat West Germany 3-2 in the Final. Maradona was carried around the pitch shoulder high, holding the trophy aloft. Like Zidane 20 years later, he was voted the tournament's best player despite his moment of infamy in the match against England.

THE ISSUES

Immediately after the quarterfinal against England, Maradona was interviewed by media representatives from around the world. He was asked, ‘Wasn't your first goal handball?’ He replied that it was ‘un poco con la cabeza de Maradona y otro poco con la mano de Dios’(a little with the head of Maradona and another little with the hand of God).

Hand of God. The phrase has echoed down the years, but it was an ambiguous answer; certainly not an admission. The admission came many years later. In his autobiography, published in 2002, Maradona said, ‘It was the hand of Diego and it felt a little like pick-pocketing the English.’ Yet, although he has come clean about what happened, he has remained ambivalent about the act, appearing apologetic in some interviews given to English media but steadfastly defiant when talking for Argentine audiences about the incident.

There is no ambivalence in Argentina. La Mano de Dioscame only four years after Argentina had been at war with Britain in the Falklands and Maradona's compatriots were overjoyed by the football victory after defeat in battle. Argentina worships Maradona, not despite the fact that he scored with his hand against England, but because of it.

Scottish football fans revere Maradona for exactly the same reason: he put one over England. When Maradona became coach to the Argentine national team, his first game in charge (on 21 November 2008) was at Hampden Park against Scotland. The Daily Record newspaper created a logo for all their extensive coverage of the fixture. It read, ‘A big hand for Diego’. The newspaper also reported a terrace song. Gleefully sung to the tune of the Hokey Cokey, it went, ‘You put your left hand in and you shake it all about. You do the hokeycokey and you score a goal, that's what it's all about. Oh-ohh, Diego Maradona!’

So, to many people, what Maradona did was not only acceptable, it was admirable. But before English readers get too censorious, let's consider this: should an Englishman have up-ended Maradona in 1986 when he was homing in on our penalty area for his second goal? Bobby Robson, who was England's manager that day in 1986, wrote in 2008 that if Bryan Robson had been fit to play against Argentina he would have stopped Maradona ‘one way or another’. Would we have complained? I doubt it very much.

Yet, surely, deliberately fouling an opponent is a form of cheating. Or is it? For me, the Hand of God incident raises two intriguing questions: what constitutes cheating in football, and when is cheating acceptable on the field of play? You might think it is easy to answer both questions. You might believe that any deliberate act that is outside the laws of the game is cheating and that it is never acceptable. Yet when I was refereeing I was constantly reminded that the line between what is legal and illicit is often blurred.

For instance, if a player goes down without being tripped or kicked, he's cheating, isn't he? Not necessarily. If he jumps out of the way of a bad challenge, he is behaving sensibly and properly. So when a player goes down without there having been any contact, a ref has to decide whether he is preserving his own shins or just diving. One high-profile incident like that occurred on 19 August 2006 at Bramall Lane. Liverpool's Steven Gerrard hit the deck in the penalty area although there had been no contact from Sheffield United's Chris Morgan. Rob Styles, the referee, awarded a penalty and explained later that, in his opinion, Morgan had intended to foul Gerrard, who had skipped out of the way and fallen to the floor. Styles received lots of stick, predictably, from writers and broadcasters for talking about ‘intent’. Equally predictably, Neil Warnock, who was the Sheffield United manager, was particularly scathing about the very idea of a match official trying to guess Morgan's intentions. He was highly critical of Styles. No change there then. But Law Twelve says that it is a foul if someone trips or attempts to trip an opponent. That law required Styles to decide what Morgan was trying to do. The ref was right and Warnock was wrong. No change there, either.

Another example came at Ewood Park on 9 November 2008 when Chelsea's Nicolas Anelka chased a poor back-pass into the Blackburn Rovers' penalty area. Goalkeeper Paul Robinson came out and, in trying to evade the challenge, Anelka lost his balance. That time, the ref, Chris Foy, did not award a penalty. I am not sure he was right, but I am sure it is always an extremely difficult judgement call.

Now, what about when a player feels the merest touch of an opponent's boot against his shin and tumbles to the ground? Does he have a right to make sure everyone realizes that he has been fouled, however slightly? I can tell you that there were many occasions, when I was refereeing, when a player stayed upright after getting his shin tapped and I said to myself, under my breath, ‘If you'd gone down there, I'd have given a penalty.’ But I didn't give anything, because there would have been no credibility in penalizing the defender for such a slight touch with the attacker still on his feet. So, do you blame strikers for flinging themselves to the floor if they feel contact in the penalty area? I don't.

To complicate matters further, there are times when an attacker effectively causes the foul against him—but it is still a foul. One example featured Thierry Henry when he was playing for France against England. It was on 17 June 2004 in the European Championships in Portugal. Henry was chasing the ball into the English penalty area and our goalkeeper, David James, was rushing out of his goal to get to the ball first. I believe that Henry calculated that, if he could arrive fractionally before James and tip the ball away with his toe, then the goalkeeper's momentum would bring about a foul. That is exactly what happened. Henry toe-ended the ball, and James, who was already diving to either block a shot or get his hands on the ball, inadvertently clattered into the French striker and knocked away his legs. Quite correctly, a penalty was awarded, Zidane scored it and France won 2-1. Henry's only intention as he raced forward had been to invite the foul. But it was still a foul—and I don't imagine anyone would consider what Henry did was cheating. So I hope you can see that the whole question of going down in the penalty area is not at all straightforward.

Now put yourself in the boots of a defender. An opponent beats you with speed or sleight of foot and, although you go for the ball, you kick his leg instead. It's a foul. Simple. But if the player beats you fairly and squarely and, after he has gone past you, you scythe him down to stop him getting away, it's a foul again, but it is a worse type of foul. We can all agree on that, I hope. So, what if, once the opponent has beaten you with the ball, you grab his shirt from behind and stop him? Is that better or worse than scything him down? In one sense, the shirt-grabbing is less heinous than hacking someone down. Knocking over an opponent could do serious damage. Shirt-grabbing usually does not endanger anyone's health. But some would argue that grabbing a shirt is more devious and less part of football.

So now let's go back to Maradona. His handball against England did not put anyone in danger of injury but it was duplicitous. So, if someone had fouled him deliberately as he closed in on his second goal, would that have been better or worse than his handball? Would it have been acceptable?

I have a few more scenarios to consider. Did any Englishman complain when Lineker went down extremely easily in the penalty area (on 1 July 1990) in a World Cup quarterfinal against Cameroon? Was there a single English murmur of disquiet on 7 June 2002 when Michael Owen crumpled to the floor to win a penalty against Argentina in the World Cup? When David Beckham converted the penalty, we all went wild. Did any of us question Owen's willingness to go down? What about when Peter Crouch tugged the dreadlocks of Brent Sancho to climb above him and head England's goal against Trinidad and Tobago on 10 June 2006 in the World Cup?

One more question. This one goes to me as well as to you. If Wayne Rooney handles the ball to score a goal in a World Cup quarterfinal, would we be as critical of him as we have been of Maradona?

Interestingly, an Englishman did ‘score’ with his hand in a big match. Paul Scholes tried it for Manchester United against Zenit St Petersburg in the European Super Cup Final on 28 August 2008. Danish referee Claus Bo Larsen spotted it and cautioned him. It was his second yellow card and so he was sent off. But if Scholes had got away with it, what would he have said afterwards? What would we have said?

Do you still think that the issue of cheating is straightforward and clear-cut?

Maradona's Hand of God goal raises a refereeing question as well. How on earth did the match officials miss the handball? The referee was a Tunisian, Ali Bennaceur. When newspapers hark back to that day, many state categorically that the quarterfinal was Bennaceur's first and last match as a World Cup referee. That is nonsense. Not even FIFA would expect a man to go straight into such a highly pressurized situation. He refereed an earlier match (in England's group, as it happens) between Portugal and Poland. He also ran the line in a couple of matches before the quarterfinal. However, because of his horrific mistake in permitting the Hand of God goal, the quarterfinal was certainly his last World Cup match.

THE REF'S DECISION

The role of the linesman was crucial that day in 1986—or rather, the lack of action by the linesman, Bogdan Dotchev, from Bulgaria. He was in the standard position, level with the second-last defender. There was no question of offside, and no ‘ball in and out of play’ to worry about. He was looking across at the incident, with an unimpaired view. Shilton is six feet, one inch tall and had his arms up to punch the ball. Maradona is five feet five. To ‘score’ the Argentine had to have his own hand several inches above his head. After the incident, Maradona looked immediately towards the linesman, presumably fearing that he had seen the handball. So why on earth didn't Dotchev spot it?

Well, here is a stunning and appalling revelation. He claimed that he did. Dotchev said he saw the handball but did not flag. It took him more than two decades to make that statement, but it is a breathtaking admission. In an interview in January 2007, Dotchev argued that, once the referee had signalled a goal, he could not intervene. His exact words were, ‘With the ref having said the goal was valid, I couldn't have waved my flag and told him the goal wasn't good—the rules were different back then.’

No, they were not. The rules—Laws actually, Bogdan—certainly did not prevent a linesman from signalling for an infringement. I don't doubt that FIFA's general instructions to linesmen included telling them to allow the refs to referee. I imagine as well that on the day of the quarterfinal referee Ali Bennaceur would have told the two linesmen—Dotchev and Berny Ulloa Morera from Costa Rica— to let him make the key decisions. But nothing in the instructions or the Laws of the Game then or now absolves the linesman of responsibility. If he saw a handball such as Maradona's, and the referee did not see it, he had a duty to signal.

Note that in 1986 there was no attempt to use officials with a common language. That came later, but it was not the issue. Whatever language you speak, if you spot a handball, you flag for it. It is much more significant that this was before specialist assistant referees were introduced at World Cups. Referees shared the task of running the line. You need to know, as well, that referees are competitive and can be resentful when others get the appointments they expected or desired. With that background, read some more of the comments made by Dotchev about that day in 1986. He said, ‘European refs take charge of at least one or two important games per month and are used to big-match pressure. What is there for Bennaceur to referee in the desert where there is nothing but camels?’

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