Who´s Watching the Man With the Power?

Once again, FIFA has proved that it has no problem continuing to function as an inadequate body of power. I´ve waited a few days to write this post due to being busy with a wedding and awaiting FIFA´s decision on what to do with the referee Koman Coulibaly after he successfully ruined a chance for the USA to make history and become the only team down 2-0 at HT and come back to win. Thanks Koman, you are more than welcome to come visit anytime. We would love to show you around the States and introduce you and FIFA to something that Americans actually excel at in our version of football, fairness, replay, and justifying your calls. It won´t be a painful experience although fairness for some isn´t what they want to see. Football is still marred by controversy all to often because referee´s have too much power and the likes of Sepp Blatter and his unwillingness to allow fair play into the modern game.

The French would have never sniffed South African soil were in not for a lack of replay and the only blind man in the world to be on the pitch, the referee. A man who was still selected to be one of the referee´s in the World Cup after he single handedly kicked the Irish out of it on a blatant bad call. The present World Cup has been mired in controversy and the FIFA has no desire whatsoever to set the record straight and offer the world something in line with their "Say No to Racism" campaign, fairness. As an American commentating on world football, I understand how any average reader would be quick to jump on the bandwagon of saying I'm an idiot American who doesn't know what he's talking about. My reply would be a simple shrug of the shoulders. I don't care because I know I know what I'm talking about. As the World Cup continues to progress, more blatant bad calls continue. In the England match against Germany, Frank Lampard was denied a goal that clearly crossed the line. In the game between Mexico and Argentina, an obvious offsides goal is allowed.

Why? Why is it that a replay on the screen for all the fans, the referee himself, and the entire world shows a blatant offsides, an infraction of the game, and yet a goal is still allowed? What is so hard about allowing fairness into football? Why can't FIFA admit they're a bunch of buffoons and adapt a measure of instant replay? Anyone can look at the final score of the last two games mentioned and say that it didn't matter in the long run but that is not the case. A miscue of such astounding proportions changes the biggest thing in a football match: momentum. If one team is allowed a blatant goal that otherwise would not have been allowed or is denied a goal that is rightfully theirs, the momentum of the game changes. It's absolutely laughable to think that instant replay of such situations would somehow affect the game in a negative manner. I'm not calling for a petition to change things because that won't do much. What we need is a changing of the guard, a bringing about of a new way of thinking and actually letting the right thing happen. Would the World Cup be less of an event if the Irish were there instead of the French? Would it be so bad that the United States, a team generally laughed at by the rest of the football world, held the record of overcoming a 2-0 HT score to win 3-2 in the end? Yet they never will all because one man can't see. I'm not the most patriotic of people when it comes to pride in my country but I can honestly say that today, I'm proud to be from a country that espouses a belief in fair play and actually goes to the painstaking lengths to ensure the right team wins and doesn't chalk it up to the ignorance of "we have always done it this way". One day, the world may catch up to us. Until then, you can all keep complaining about how your team was cheated and I will too.

- El Guiri