Refereeing in paralysis - World Cup refereeing operation decends into chaos... and FIFA's fait accompli

Nobody (I mean internally that is) has any idea how FIFA assessed Antonio Mateu Lahoz's performance in Netherlands vs. Argentina. Was his management good, did he show too many cards, should he have sent anybody off? No referee is any the wiser. FIFA actually gave up trying to assess the performances now. 

A terrible state of affairs! But one which was completely predictable too...

Massimo Busacca pictured in May/2014

The empty chair was a sign of things to come. Naïveity got the better of many of us, but the refereeing of twenty-second FIFA World Cup final tournament has turned into the completely-expectable mess which in reality it was always going to. Having praised the disciplinary control during the earliest matches, by the knockout stage, one could easily forget that they hadn't tuned into Brian Hall's CONCACAF Gold Cup matches, but instead the most prestigious (and in theory best-refereed) competition in world football.

How was Mateu or anyone supposed to succeed in Netherlands vs. Argentina, given the hand that he (and indeed all the referees) had been dealt. The Spaniard had to skate by and essentially hope that by luck, a major incident and blow-up wouldn't have occurred. Of course, nobody wants needless red cards in any match -- let alone in the FIFA World Cup -- but in being forced to such an extreme approaching such a match, with all that undercurrent. Such handicaps doomed Mateu.

This was a 'Velasco in Brazil vs. Colombia moment', and our NEDARG was a nadir which was actually about ten years in the making. 

How come? Let's explain!

Former FIFA President Sepp Blatter

As some of you may know, past World Cups and major tournaments constitute something of a serious hobby for me, and in conducting research for them, you can stumble across (and are also kindly told :)) some interesting trinkets and stories about them. There are interesting human anecdotes, but what is most interesting for me is the 'ideologies' of each tournament, of how FIFA wants the referees to approach each game. Sometimes the differences can be minimal, other times, they can constitute a full revolution, which changes the face of refereeing across all continents and competitions.

Brazil 2014 was indeed such a revolution. FIFA completely reset the dial at this tournament, and while not everything that they tried at this World Cup worked to the letter, the general idea which guided this event is still very much the dominant philoshophy today in elite refereeing. The scale of the leniency and nature of the referee's tactical approaches were astonishing for the then-The Third Team blog - but this was about something far more than simply avoiding the accumulation of cautions over the tournament, trying to avoid red cards where possible and 'resetting' the interpretation of excessive force.

Just like Italia '90, the South African World Cup completely spooked FIFA: it was "too boring", they determined. And they were really spoked. They even threatened to lose the plot again. João Havelange earned the world's ire in 1990 by suggesting that the problem was easily reversible, the goals were simply too small. While Havelange was mostly just a dictator for power's own sake by this point, the intellectual ideas at FIFA were coming from their then-General Secretary, Joseph Blatter. 

Blatter was always heavily involved in refereeing, and 1990 was his most involved yet - he even managed to circumvent the referees committee, in order to get two referees rejected at this tournament. Because they were too strict? No, quite the opposite in fact. Blatter was infuriated about red cards which weren't given by these two officials in question (one for DOGSO and another for SFP), whereas for the referees committee the decisions were acceptable. Blatter, ever the excellent politician, won the day, and neither referee featured again at the tournament, or indeed at any FIFA event ever again. 

The maître himself - but not Blatter's favourite ref 

What on earth does that have to do with Brazil 2014, and even moreso this Netherlands vs. Argentina game, I hear you cry. All in due time!

After Italia '90, Blatter set up a commission called Task Force Football 2000, to analyse ways of making the football spectacles more interesting for the next World Cup finals in 1994. Among its members was Sepp Blatter's favourite refereeing son, Peter Mikkelsen (RIP, sir :/), and a number of ex-players, managers and some administrators. The rest is quite well known, and indeed FIFA were proved right - USA 1994 was considered a huge success, the refereeing revolution worked. 

Now we can rewind back to Brazil and 2014. FIFA were extremely panicked about how "boring" the South Africa tournament was considered, Blatter even speaking about having 'points for goals' and not just wins and crazy ideas like this, but they held their resolve and followed the same pattern as 1990 - this time, creating the Task Force Football 2014. Similarities should be noted. Contrary to USA 1994, before which the refereeing guidelines were on everyone's lips, what happened in 2014 seemed to take everyone by complete surprise. The Task Force disbanded in 2012, without much note at all.

So what happened? 

Massimo Busacca refereed at WC2010

Massimo Busacca was surprisingly appointed as FIFA's Head of Refereeing in July/2011, his first ever role in refereeing management - Busacca was a member of Task Force Football 2014 (beginning in April of that year), and replaced outgoing José María García-Aranda as FIFA's top man. Blatter had already decided what his role was going to be - see this quote from a press conference at World Cup 2010:

Blatter also announced that Fifa will be launching a new drive to improve refereeing standards at the top level later this year. "We will come out with a new model in November on how to improve high level referees," he commented."We will start with a new concept of how to improve match control. I cannot disclose more of what we are doing but something has to be changed."

Strange. The match control and overall standards of refereeing at World Cup 2010 was really excellent, probably the best ever in the (recent) history of FIFA's showpiece tournament, at least in the last forty years or-so. Certainly it was much better than in 2014...

It is obvious what Busacca's role was - to reposition refereeing in a place where it could be easily controlled and to not let "the rules" take away from the spectacle. It is a thorny issue - the easy reposte would be that football is about the players, not the refs, and that it is draconian to moan about this etc. And to be fair - perhaps football was due to a repositioning of SFP and DOGSO, and indeed of refereeing in general. Players are much fitter and much more technically skilled now, so the necessity of strict action (and FIFA were never thaaaat strict on them btw) against potential RCs was much lower. I think that is all fair. 

But - the 'creating a synthetic spectacle style' isn't really about that. It is nothing to do with benevolence or what is good for football, etc. It was also done completely behind the scenes, secretively too. It was really about a deliberate weakening of the whole refereeing 'edifice', to circumvent rules as much as possible, to keep the powerful sponsors (FIFA) and clubs (UEFA) happy. This coalesced for an era of refs who entered the field of play in mere referee 'costumes', rather than referee 'kit'. 

Football became too important for properly refereed games.

Mateu didn't stand a chance on Friday...

To be clear - it is refereeing's job to serve football, not football's job to serve (our) refereeing. But, this new revolution leaves the ref's with the shortest end of the stick. Mateu was criticised by virtually everyone for his performance with many yellow cards - will FIFA stick by him for sticking to the principle of avoiding red cards at any cost? The answer should be obvious, of course not! And if someone tries to tell you that too many referees ruined WC games prior to 2014 - then they are simply wrong. 

And the real clue for how damaging this track is and will continue to be is how much chaos it has caused internally. At the EURO, UEFA gave up doing their seminars, gave up even trying to analyse the referees performances during the knockout stage - nobody could stand up and defend the indefensible. Now, the same happens at this World Cup: the morning after Netherlands vs. Argentina, again there was no seminar. Remembering that everything is decided without reports since 2014 and only verbal discussions matter, no ref had any idea of what FIFA thought about Mateu's performance. This might sound relatively trivial, but please believe me: the WCs 1986-2010 were never even close (the only exception: the end of 2002) to determining that assessing performances is now intellectually worthless. 

FIFA were always 'big picture' focused, and that's completely fair of course(!!), but it is sad for me and I know many others, to watch the biggest tournament in football refereeing being organised like this.

And the worst may yet still be to come...

(Facundo Tello worked it out btw! Why risk playing more than his eight minutes when ten and extra time completely sunk the Spaniard. They don't have the internal coherence to demand otherwise.)

Who can blame Collina and Busacca for not standing up yesterday either. The most absurd and indicative scene of this whole World Cup was Paredes/89' - pure, pure chaos.

FIFA or whoever have the right to dictate how referees should handle the games. But - such internal chaos is obviously a logical consequence of the knowing decision to weaken 'refereeing' when it became for FIFA an irritation, a 'problem' to be erased as much as possible. The correlation between this selling and shelling out of refereeing and the ensuing mess on the inside are not only related - but direct. 

Refereeing is a pretty masochistic role at the best of times. But having taken the aim of "being fair" away and replaced it with "doing FIFA's executives bidding for them", it must be quite hard to find much sense in your work as a World Cup referee... you could see that very easily in Mateu's body language and demeanour in extra time. 

I hope this message is clear to final four referees of World Cup 2022 - FIFA are in such chaos they cannot 'force' you to referee in any which way at all. Relax! They have fallen foul of their mess which they deliberately created themselves. Don't listen to them and their guidelines, they are in no place internally whatsoever to have the strength or power to instruct you in any which way (Björn Kuipers EURO2020 final masterclass was no accident!). Don't be guided by the idea to create a synthetic spectacle, just referee the game on its own merits!

It is obviously tricky - there is obviously somewhere in the middle ground to be found between what FIFA executives would ideally want and what refereeing 'ideally' wants. For years and years, this was found in my opinion. But I do not believe the argument "well the game was exciting" should be a carte blanche for 'everything'. It puts the players safety in danger (Neymar vs. Colombia...) and asks too much of the referees. They are real people who care about doing a good job: they shouldn't be lectured to about "exciting games" without having something to say about the guidelines they are forced to execute. And forced to execute not for the good of the game, but for creating a synthetic spectacles which are valuable to FIFA. 

This is the most irritating, and indeed final point - Mateu created an exciting game. FIFA wants exciting games. At least they could reward him for doing what they wanted! But alas... they really treat the referees like idiots, nowadays, I'm sorry to say that. 

Of course, I don't expect anything to change and probably it will only get worse - but if the quality of officiating and officials generated by the continued 2014-track continues to decrease (it has IMO), then maybe history tells us that the final straw will come in 2034 or something like that...