Quote:
Originally Posted by GirlySports
In the World Cup the matches are too important and the referees are the best in the world.
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No, they are not and it is not ... even ... close.
Repeating myself from an earlier post in the other thread.
Quote:
Imagine the U.S. playing for World Cup survival on June 26 against powerhouse Germany. Clint Dempsey and Michael Bradley line up on one side, Bastian Schweinsteiger and Mesut Ozil on the other. And the referee is a Tahitian named Norbert Hauata. He has never before been to the World Cup. Usually he referees squads like Dragon and Tamarii Faa'a back in Tahiti, a country that has never sent a team to the World Cup.
It could happen.
As an alternate in the pool of 33 World Cup referees in Brazil this month, Hauata is a pulled hamstring away from the biggest stage in the game. And it isn't just the alternates who lack experience. Among the 24 official referees are several who have never called games involving big-name teams and players.
The world's most popular sporting event uses a more democratic than meritocratic process for choosing referees. While the World Cup's 32 teams must play their way into the tournament through a grueling two-year qualifying process, FIFA, the sport's governing body, pulls referees from more than 40 countries out of a sense of fairness to all of its member associations. It is similar to how basketball's world governing body plucks officials from around the world to work the Olympic tournament.
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http://online.wsj.com/articles/the-p...ees-1402354736