This week’s article revolves around football but could easily be adapted to any sport. In fact, just this week, I came across a very interesting article on ‘The Referee’ website which I would like to share with all your readers.

The article in question was written by Carl P. Schwartz who is the co-ordinator for the football section on the same website The Referee. Any reference to this article is acknowledged accordingly throughout today’s article.

Mr Schwartz wrote that during some top-level assessor training, those in attendance had just heard guidance passed out to the inspectors (who were all assessors at international level) at the 2006 World Cup whereby if an error in judgment or a lack of control influences the outcome of a game, that referee’s performance should be considered poor or very poor.

At that moment, one of the game’s more insightful minds asked a tough question, “You are the inspector for the England-Argentina game when Maradona scored his “hand of god” goal. Do you recommend to FIFA that referee work the next round of competition?”

I guess every person, not only the assessors present for the meeting then, would be taken aback by such a very intelligent question. It is surely not easy to arrive to a quick answer and/or opinion.

In his article, Mr Schwartz argued that everyone is going to have an opinion on this question. Expecting such a reaction, “The Referee” asked the same question across a world-wide database of football referees and obtained more than 700 answers from across the globe.

Mr Schwartz then listed some of the comments which are produced below.

David Cautley, a 10-year referee from Portland, Oregon said: “If, in the opinion of the Inspector, the event(s) in question should have been seen by any member of the officiating crew and were not acted on, then the performance of the crew was poor. Events which were simply not visible from the proper positions of the crew are excusable.”

Being substantially out of usual position is specifically not excusable. With 20-plus years as a referee and six years as an assessor, Don Brown from Munhall wrote: “Assessors need to judge referee performance by game critical incidents. Any referee should be able to get the throw-ins right, the goal kicks, corner kicks and simple stuff. But the things that set the top-level referees apart from the rest of us (and I put myself into that category) is the ability to get the tough calls right. Quite simply, the referee in that game did not get it right. Seventy thousand people in the stands saw handling on that play, but the referee crew missed it. I would fail them all! The reason, whether it is a result of poor positioning, bad judgement, etc., does not matter. At that level, you have to get it right.”

According to Jim Gordon, who is a referee and instructor: “The referee should have seen and whistled the goal back; the assistant should have helped his referee do the right thing. The referee and assistant should have been written down for a failure of integrity (willingness to make the hard call) or perhaps for failing to expect the unexpected — blatant cheating in front of the whole world.”

The half-dozen assessors that Schwartz talked to informally all would have failed the referee and that leading assistant. On his part, Carl P Schwartz stated that he is inclined to think that while he would have said a sympathetic word at the verbal debrief, it would have been a fail and a non-recommend to work further games.

Upon concluding, Mr Schwartz put forward an interesting observation on the same Maradona’s ‘hand of god’ incident back in 1986, during the Mexico World Cup.

In fact this goal was scored in the quarter-final match played on 22 June 1986 in Mexico City’s Estadio Azteca. Argentina eventually won 2–1.

Just to refresh the memory for those whop watched the game, six minutes into the second half, the score was 0–0. Maradona cut inside from the right flank and played a diagonal low pass to the edge of the area to teammate Jorge Valdano and continued his run in the hope of a one-two movement. Maradona’s pass, however, was played slightly behind Valdano and reached England’s Steve Hodge who had dropped back to defend.

Hodge tried to hook the ball clear but miscued it. The ball flew off his foot and into the penalty area, towards Maradona, who had continued his run. England goalkeeper Peter Shilton duly came out of his goal to punch the ball clear. With his considerable height of 185cm, Shilton was clear favourite to beat Maradona (standing at 165cm) to it.

However, Maradona reached it first – with the outside of his left fist. The ball went into the goal, and the referee, (Tunisian Ali Bin Nasser), not having seen the infringement, allowed the goal.

Mr Schwartz stated that only recently has it come out that the Bulgarian assistant Bogdan Dotchev did see the handling and knew that Maradona had used his hand.

In fact I did some research and found that The Sun reported that Dotchev had said (after that the Tunisian referee had put forth some comments about his assistant and blamed him for not signaling the handball) that “with the ref having said the goal was valid, I could not have waved my flag and told him the goal was not good. The rules were different back then”.

Reacting to this statement, British referees’ chief Keith Hackett, in charge of nearly 100 internationals between 1981 and 1991, had said: “…there were no rules at the time which said this linesman could not alert the referee to a handball. This incident was one of incompetence on the part of the officials.”