Why Blatter is answering the wrong question.

Ok, ok. A little bit belated, but i wanted to throw my two penneth into the ring on the whole goalline technology debate.

Whether or not technology would improve the game of football is a mute point because, apart from the fact that it blatantly would, that was not the most burning issue to come out of the England - Germany game for me, oh no.

Goal line technology will surely play a large part in deciding whether or not the ball crossed a line and will no doubt decide big games more fairly in future World cups. However, you did not need a hawkeye, goal line ref, or infrared laser to determine whether the ball crossed the line on Sunday because every single person watching could SEE that the ball was completely over the line. Everyone, of course apart from the Uruguayan ref/linesman, which is of course the main point of this post.

Every World cup has to be represented by 32 nations and every World cup has to be refereed by 32 referee teams. However while England, Slovakia and New Zealand have to sweat blood and graft their way into the tournament through their own football skill, the referees just have to be from the league of the said country. (unless they do not have a National League as in New Zealands case). So, in they come, piggy backing on the back of their teams hard graft even when most of the national teams players have never played in their national league. In fact not one single Uruguan player is in the uruguan national league.

Why do we have to have representation anyway? Aren't referee's meant to be impartial regardless of their country of origin? Of course you could never have a English ref refereeing an English game but why not just have 32 of the best refs in Europe, regardless of country. We have english refs every week in the premier league. We have ref's in the sunday league even though they only live around the corner. Place of birth doesn't suddenly mean you are going to be xenophobic to the detriment of your job. If part of your job description is to be impartial then you learn, pretty quickly to cut bias out of your game.

So what i propose is this. A refs league, the top 32 refs from any of the 4 or 5 european leagues. Yes i know Europe doesn't represent the entire world but lets be honest any player who is worth his salt plays there so let's just stop trying to 'represent' everyone and just have 32 people who can do their bloody jobs; after all theres a nike contract riding on it.