Headline acts

How the men in the middle and the last line of defence hogged the World Cup limelight.

THE controversy that surrounded the performances of referees and linesmen at the World Cup could have been easily avoided if the officials had reached the finals in the same way as the 32 competing teams – on merit. Instead, world governing body FIFA decided to farm out the allocation in a politically correct way, awarding berths to as wide a selection of confederations and countries as possible.