Spain to complain officials after defeat

The Spanish FA have decided to lodge an official protest against referee Gamal Ghandour and his two linesmen following yesterday’s controversial World Cup exit at the hands of hosts South Korea.

RFEF president Angel Maria Villar, who is also a FIFA vice-president and staunch ally of FIFA boss Sepp Blatter, said the match officials had made too many mistakes and robbed Spain of a victory they had earned.

‘‘I don’t think the referees were correct, they made mistakes and if anyone had won, it should have been Spain,’’ Villar told Marca.

‘‘There were a lot of important mistakes like the goals we had disallowed,’’ he said.

‘‘We are going to present an official complaint in which we shall say we were prejudiced by the referee. It will be presented to the FIFA Refereeing Commission, of which I am a member,’’ said Villar.

‘‘The damage has been done, but we have to stop things like this happening again, so the complaint will be constructive.’’

The main bone of contention came in golden goal extra-time.

Fernando Morientes scored what would have been the winner when the assistant referee ruled that the ball had gone out of play before being crossed by Joaquin for the Real Madrid player to head in.

However, replays proved that the ball had not crossed the line.

Spain joined Italy as victims of controversial decisions which favoured the Koreans, and both European countries have expressed fury as their tournament hopes were killed off as a result.

After losing on a golden goal in the second round, several Italian players accused the match officials of being bribed, while Spanish star Ivan Helguera described his team’s quarter-final loss as a ‘‘robbery’’.