The African Champions Leage Game between Ethiopian St.George and Ghana's Heart's of Oak had been interepted on the 43rd minute. It was ofcourse due to unbeliviable mis conduct of Ghanas. What would be FIFA"S decision?
211218
Repeat the game and pay a lot of money!
591623
It's nothing to do with racism. There's a shortage of african teams because not many of them are good enough to qualify.\n\nas for the USA v Ghana game, Ghana got away with murder on pitch, not to mention a decidedly dodgy penalty that gave them the winning goal.
667846
I live in NY and I can't watch that game highlights too. got the same message. I can't also watch Spain game.\nMay be because Saudi players worship their god after the goal. I don't like people take politics into a soccer game. I love soccer.
674897
Deco will play,   will not play,   will play,   will not play,  DECO DID NOT PLAY against Angola, and we still won, LOL !!  The Portugal side that played against Mexico is the one that England will face.  Very  GRIM for England.   Mexico  is a FAR better team than England and they lost 2-1 against us.  Kinda makes you think...  doesn't  it really  ?!  And for those who have said that Fig ACTED, the face injury needs to be seen the frame by frame in the replay on DVD... Figo had a chicken egg size injury on the right size of his face, just below the eye.  -Ronaldo was injured only SEVEN minutes into the game.  -Ricardo, after successfully defending a kick, is on the ground when that Dutch a_s kicks Ricardo in the b_lls long moments AFTER the ball was gone. You need to see the match and the incidents frame by frame to understand that hose were Portuguese MEN reacting naturally to uncalled for aggression and violence. BY ALL MEANS ATTACK US, BUT TELLS IN ADVANCE THAT THOSE ARE YOUR INTENTIONS  so that we can kick your asses back, LOL !! Otherwise it is cowardice to hide behind the SKIRTS of the referee... ain't that the truth !!! Come on, reasonable men... you know it makes sense !!!
594646
Some football factions have an interest in allowing the results of matches to be influenced.\n\nWho's to say some games aren't bought?\n\nWe certainly know that Italian teams in the Sere A can't be trusted 100%.\n\nUntil Fifa actually THINK about what these "footballers" and their antics (diving, checking, looking for free kicks) are doing for the greater good of the game, we'll all just have to accept that teams who exploit the referee the best will ALWAYS win...\n\nAustralia went out there and played fairly, like MEN, and were robbed by a soft decision. If Italy had of earned that match all would be well, but seeing as they could only "win" by fowl means they have lost my respect permanently.
407588
It is one of the times that a referee makes the difference in the game, this time it was the wrong decision. And the sad part is that it was not a mistake, because the officals discussed it. \nI have seen bad decisions, because an official was not in the right place or just missed the call. This was different, this was a decision by committee (I assume).
655409
I don't like either team for the record, this is purely objective:\n\nIt was not a penalty kick, there is no way.  The Aussie was down well before he was tripped over.  It was a very harsh decision in the 93rd minute.  It should have had to be BLATANT in order to cause a penalty kick that late in the match.  Football is about fairplay (kickouts on injuries etc.) and to see a game decided like that was sad.  The ref probably regrets that decision, but who knows.
616795
The realistic chance has gone out the window via the subpar performance of the referees so far.  I know Ghana is going to rely mostly on their defense and the yellow and red card will flow like water.  After that what realistic chance do they have?  In a perfect world Ghana would win, but we know how it goes.
621600
they have internet TV at work here. I'm just pretending to do work now. good game so far. :-)\n\nedit:\n\nwow what a good game. ghana played brilliantly a few bad off sides trap though. great great game.
662964
I agree the refereeing has been bad, but I however don't feel it is all their fault.  Fifa has told them to referee a certain way, which is way more tight then players are used too.  This in turn create way more cards.  While there have been some awful decisions like the 3 yellows, or the PK against the US, most of the refereeing is following the strict rules fifa has put in place.  Referees are just easy scapegoats, they are the middlemen in fifa's plan to clean up the game, and get rid of bad challenges, dives, and time wasting.  I feel right now players are having a hard time adjusting to this, and therefore we are seeing way more cards.
579153
I agree. The officials are scared of the bigger teams who have tradionally large and passionate crowds, it's limiting the espansion of the game. Ghana, Australia, South Korea...many of the small teams have endured unexplainable fouls while the bigger teams only have to do a little acting. Soccer should not be about past reputations. FIFA needs to do something.
586141
My wife tries to make the world cup a struggle of class against class (I thought that was a political struggle, not a sports struggle).  But she doesn't complain when her country wins (Brazil, not exactly a rich one).  So it seems a bit hypocritical.  I didn't see the Ivory Coast match, but from what I've seen in the past, African teams play rougher among themselves than non-African teams do and so when they have to play outside of Africa they get called for more fouls.
602957
replaying this game will not happen, there is no time in the busy schedule of the tournament.\nas a referee i can say that figo may have gotten away with striking an opponent which in this case resulted in violent conduct (which is a red card offense). however, the referee wasn't paying attention to the situation and he went with his assistants and 4th official's judgement of the situation.\nin the opinion of this referee, figo only deserved a yellow. remember that the referee's judgement is final and not all of the referees may have the same opinion.\nif you disagree with this, think about this question? "why is a referee even put in soccer games?"
592454
Figo will be suspended for at least one game, probably more. If you remember 2 years ago in euro 2004 Italy's Totti was caught by the camera spitting on a danish opponent. No one saw this in regulation time as it was well behind the play, but fifa studied the tapes and discovered this incident. He was suspended for 3 games. Im thinking a head butt is worse than that.
601035
I certianly agree there have been some embarrasing performances or calls by the ref.  USA-ITA, USA-GHA, TUN-UKR, AUS-CRO, NED-POR, ITA-AUS are just some of them.  However, on the whole, the refs have been ok.  The bad calls receive more attention than the good ones for obvious reasons.  I think the main problem is FIFA's attitude coming into the tournament.  Yellow Cards are meant to let players know that their action was not acceptable, and if seen again they will be gone, and should be used after the Ref has already warned the player.  Red Cards are for extremely vicous fouls.  Of course, pk's and offsides will just be called wrong sometimes, and thats bound to happen, but hopefully the cards will be better next time around, I dont think theres anyway to save face this time.
669183
Yes, it was unfair and it was cheating.  But no team, be it a club team or a national team, can claim the moral high ground when it comes to 'gamesmanship' or cheating.  Not all incidents of cheating are as high profile as the Italy one, but there are plenty I could name that have cost football teams/clubs dearly.\nThe onus should be on FIFA to bring in video refereeing technology to eliminate the possibility of teams being screwed over like this.  In an ideal world you would like the players to have some sense of morals and responsibility, and some do, but the gamesmanship will continue as long as people can get away with it.  It's a real shame for the team that get's screwed though (until they screw some other poor team themselves of course!).
580897
On Saturday, 2 of the 3 games I saw were absolutely ruined by the refs.  The Italy-USA game was, of course, the worst officiating of a game that I have seen since I took my niece to her little league match last year.  However, the game that nobody seemed to be paying much attention to (including the ref) was the Iran game.  I caught 2 fouls that could have drawn red cards that were completely ignored by the ref, including a cleat to the face that was lucky not to draw blood.\n\nAnd what about Togo on Monday???  That was absolutely a PK that didn't draw any notice AT ALL by the ref in the first half, when Togo was down 1-nil!\n\nBy and large, though, I've thought the officiating to be fair in all but a handful of instances, and think that FIFA is more responsible for the state of the games than the refs, with them begging the refs to throw more cards for simple fouls.