Tuesday, June 27, 2006

We wuz robbed!

Italy v Australia. Score 0-0, we're in the third and final minute of extra time with just 5 seconds left.

An Australian defender is on the ground in the penalty box, an Italian falls over him...and the referee signals a penalty!

A penalty!?

According to the laws of the game, a penalty shall be awarded if a player commits any of the following inside the penalty area:

*kicks or attempts to kick an opponent
*trips or attempts to trip an opponent
*jumps at an opponent
*charges an opponent
*strikes or attempts to strike an opponent
*pushes an opponent
*tackles an opponent to gain possession of the ball, making contact with the opponent before touching the ball
*holds an opponent
*spits at an opponent
*handles the ball deliberately (except for the goalkeeper within his own penalty area)

This follows on the heels of the appalling performance of referees Pol and Ivanov. The fans and the players deserve better than this.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Some-times there is no justice... Terrible decision by both the ref and the ref's assistant....

nzm said...

That was awful - I felt so sorry for the Oz team to go out like that after playing their hearts out.

Also felt sorry for Ghana - if one team deserved to go through based on enthusiasm and taking every opportunity to go forward, they won that chance. They should replace Ukraine - the Swiss/Ukraine match was abyssmal.

Herlock Sholmes said...

I feel sorry for Australia, but the better team went through :)