Referees are, without a doubt, the most hated breed in all of sports . For they are reviled by all sports fans alike, at some moment or other, regardless of team affiliation

In my previous post, I alluded to the media's (ab)use of Zidane in seeking to create a negative portrayal of this year's World Cup. Of 105,728 supposed individuals responding to a question which asked "What will be the most lasting memory of the World Cup" on FoxSports' soccer website, 49% indicated that Zidane's headbutt was the memory which was most firmly entrenched in their collective subconscious; a distant but significant second marjority of 16% indicated that the poor officiating would be the aspect of the tournament which would last longest in their minds.

If we use this online poll as a yardstick, it gives rise to a fairly clear picture of the overall public perception of this tournament now that it has reached its end. But wait, this website is actually one of the very media channels that we speak of, which begs the question: Is it that members of the public form their opinions, then log on and visit these websites to vent their frustrations? Or, is it that members of the public visit these websites, form frustrated opinions and then vote?

Is it the chicken or the egg? If you are hearing all around you that the World Cup is disappointing, then you will tend to believe this. If you are hearing all around you that the officiating at the World Cup is abysmal, then you will tend to believe this too.

Sports fans' hatred for referees seems to have reached unprecedented level this year, and soccer is no different. It has always been all too easy to cast blame on the referees for unwanted outcomes of matches, but something I seldom hear acknowledged is the fact that we viewers (and commentators) are blessed with the enhanced visual gift of slow motion replays.

In game situations, referees are continually presented with split-second events which require split-second judgements - sometimes they get it right, sometimes they don't. On the other hand we, the viewers, get to watch these same split second events repeated frame-by-frame, often over the course of several minutes in forming our own not-so-split-second, and usually biased judgements.

And so, much was made this time around of the record number of yellow and red cards issued, never once taking into account that this was exactly what FIFA wanted after issuing tough talk of clamping down on certain types of play during the tournament. FIFA, in turn, only made the situation worse by seeking to divorce itself from proceedings, exercising its own version of the blame game by portraying the refs as an out of control train. This posture reached its peak when FIFA President Sepp Blatter stated that the referee of the Holland-Portugal 2nd round match ought to have shown himself a red card.

An arm slowly extends in a horizontal manner, finding its end in the form of an outstretched and accusing finger. Before this finger stands a referee; we're all human, but yet the onlooker seems irrevocably convinced that he/she could do a better job of officiating than the referee on-screen. What referees need is an organised, universal body which spans the world of sports; because if I was a referee at this moment in time, I would feel at my most disowned and isolated ever. And my response would be to let these naysayers run a few games of their own without my presence just to see how well they fare without my supposed bumbling.