Uefa perfect the art of looking busy
Michel Platini’s first mistake was not heeding the great man.
The Uefa boss’s scheme of placing officials behind either goal was always doomed to derision while he denied them the refereeing equivalent of an A4 sheet or two — our new watchdogs can’t whistle, signal or wave a flag. Instead, he gave them a wand but no ability to cast a spell in the referee’s direction — rather, they must whisper discretely in his ear.
Cue a million complainants wondering what it is these wizards do. George wouldn’t have lasted a week under this scrutiny.
The fifth and sixth officials probably won’t last much longer either after Hungarian Ivan Vad blew the whole operation in Donetsk with his rare insistence that John Terry hadn’t crossed a line. But the man beside Germany’s goal in the Group B tie with Denmark has been discredited too, for missing the pull on Bendtner. Yet we’ll never know what message, if any, he relayed to Carlos Velasco Carballo’s headset. Who knows just how busy he was trying to look? What chance, then, do our faceless and gestureless new officials have of taking some credit for what has been a remarkably disciplined and honestly contested tournament so far? Overshadowed entirely in the clamour for goal-line technology — which will now, finally, be heeded — is the influence our new custodians of the peace might be having on the psyche of defenders and attackers alike.
Do corners descend less often into wanton lawlessness under their watch? Are chancers slightly less likely to tumble under their noses? When goal-line technology is finally installed, might our wizards have done enough to stay in a job?
