Goalline Handball Keeps Spotlight on Referees

The controversy over refereeing gained momentum yesterday with the failure of the Scottish referee Hugh Dallas or his English assistant Philip Sharp to spot a goalline handball by Germany's Torsten Frings.

Frings's intervention four minutes after the interval blocked a goalbound shot from Crystal Palace's Gregg Berhalter. The refusal to award a penalty prompted the US coach Bruce Arena to curse the competition's latest refereeing oversight.

"The big countries still get a lot more respect on calls than the smaller footballing nations," he said. "It's amazing how such a big side [as Germany] fell over so much as well. I didn't realise we were that strong, but they played for free-kicks in important areas and they got them."

"I thought the ball hit the defender on the hand," said Berhalter, whose shot had flicked off the goalkeeper Oliver Kahn before striking Frings. "Games are won and lost in such moments, but I'm not going to complain about the referee. In our last match against Mexico we might have conceded a penalty like that but that went unnoticed too. That's the way it goes." He was alluding to a penalty-area handball by the US midfielder John O'Brien missed by the officials.

Earlier Pele had added his voice to the criticism of officials, describing the refereeing at the tournament as "very, very poor" and adding: "Fifa should pay attention in the future and in the next games."

But Edgardo Codesal, a member of Fifa's referees' committee, defended the officials. "They are honest men and they do their best," he said. "I do not think they lose their credibility if they make a mistake.

Codesal did admit that Italy's Francesco Totti should not have been sent off for diving because there had in fact been contact with the South Korean defender, although that was not clear from the referee Byron Moreno's viewpoint.

This did not appease the president of the Italian football federation Franco Carraro, who said yesterday: "Moreno was completely incapable."

Carraro said Italy had suffered from officiating errors "first against Croatia and then against Mexico and many in the Korea game.

"But to attribute the elimination only to the officiating would be a grave error," he added. "We had many opportunities to score but only scored once against [South Korea]."