It seems the referee who made so many bad calls against Italy when they played South Korea in the 2002 World Cup has been suspended for 20 games for manipulating an Ecuadorean league game. He added 13 minutes of extra time (while reporting the game lasted the regulation 90), enabling Liga de Quito to come from behind and win 4-3. Of course, he just happens to be running for City Council in Quito. Clearly, he doesn't meet the bipartisan standard claimed by FIFA for the World Cup referees.
He was pretty bad in the Italy-South Korea match, but the ref for the Spain-South Korea match was even worse.
This is all quite reminiscent of the US vs. Russia Olympic basketball match where the referee added time to the clock until Russia finally scored to "beat" the US.
Posted by Robert at September 11, 2002 10:54 PM | Trackback
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