Seeing Red

by Graham Poll

  One of the reasons I had gone to watch Ireland’s 1–1 draw with Germany in Ibaraki was to have a look at one of the assistant referees, Jens Larsen of Denmark. He was going to be part of ‘my team’ for my game, with Phil Sharp from England. Jens had run the line at the Euro 2000 final and was regarded as one of Europe’s leading assistants. But he was poor in the Ireland match. When I discussed his performance with other refs and assistants who were at the game, most of us thought he was too intrusive: he looked like he was trying too hard to make his mark.

  That was the view as well at the FIFA debrief for the game. Jens was criticized heavily by the match observer, Carlos Alarcon of Paraguay, in front of all the other refs and assistants at our rural Japanese base. The bad news for Jens was that Senor Alarcon was to be the observer at our match. That was bad news for me as well, because it put pressure on Jens and I did not want him trying to demonstrate what a good official he was. I did not want him making a big, dramatic decision just to show that he was up to it. I needed him to feel positive and part of the team – not someone desperate to prove something.

  As we travelled back to Ibaraki in a people carrier on the Friday, the day before the match, we listened to a CD of party music Jens had compiled. The three of us sang along and built up a rapport. At our hotel we watched Paraguay lose to Spain (which did not improve the mood of Senor Alarcon) and then watched England beat Argentina with a David Beckham penalty. Phil Sharp and I tried, without a lot of success, to keep our celebrations restrained.

  I went to sleep easily enough, still quietly confident. I woke at 6 am because I thought I’d heard a noise in the room. I even asked, ‘Who’s there?’ There was no answer and no more noise, so I went back to sleep. In the morning I discovered that it had been Phil pushing good luck cards from home under my door.

  Jens was nervous as we left for the stadium. So we put his CD on again. It seemed to do the trick – until we got out at the ground. There, Carlos Alarcon, who had travelled separately, came over. He shook my hand and wished me luck. He did the same with Phil Sharp. He did the same with the fourth official, William Mattus of Costa Rica. But to Jens, he said, ‘Be strong.’

  I rolled my eyes in disbelief and dismay. Of course, Alarcon thought he was doing the right thing, but Jens’s mood changed straight away. He was nervous again. All the painstaking confidence-building Phil and I had done had been wiped out by one misguided remark. As I believe subsequent events proved, Jens felt he now needed to prove that he was a top assistant. He believed, subconsciously no doubt, that the way to do that was to make a big, brave decision. So, subconsciously again, he started the match waiting for a big decision. Over the years I had learned not to look for them – they come along without you seeking them.

  Five minutes into the second half, Italy’s Christian Vieri scored with a header from close range. Jens stuck up his flag for offside. There was no way I could go against his decision or ask him about it. I had to disallow the goal.

  Vieri scored a legitimate goal five minutes later with another header and Italy sat back, content that they could hold onto the lead instead of pressing for another goal. Yet, after seventy-three minutes, Ivica Olic got in front of the Italian defence to reach a Robert Jarni cross and equalize. Three minutes later, Milan Rapaic’s volley was deflected into the Italian net by Italy’s substitute, Marco Materazzi. Croatia were winning 2–1.

  Four minutes from time, Francesco Totti took a free-kick from thirty yards. It thumped against the inside of one post, bounced along the line, brushed the other post and went out for a goal-kick. The drama was building and the Italians kept pressing.

  In stoppage time, a long-range free-kick eluded everybody and bounced into the net, but Jens had his flag up. I thought at first that he was signalling offside, but then he indicated that he had seen a shirt-pull. Again, I had to accept his decision and disallow the goal without going over for a discussion with him. The Italians were outraged. For the second time they had managed to get the ball into the net only to have the goal disallowed – and this time, the decision had condemned them to defeat.

  I expected protests at the finish, and when I blew the final whistle a minute or two later I was surrounded by Italian players. I had a good relationship with most of them because I had refereed them in Champions League matches. Vieri said, ‘Graham, it’s not you … he has killed you.’ I shielded Jens from the furious Italians, but their body language told me they thought they had genuine grievances.

  In the dressing room I asked Jens if he was certain about disallowing the stoppage-time goal. He said he had seen Filippo Inzaghi tug a defender’s shirt. He was adamant it was the correct call. He said, ‘I would not have flagged otherwise.’

  What none of us knew at that stage was that disallowing the fiftieth-minute header by Vieri was a huge mistake. The striker was clearly onside. The assessor, Carlos Alarcon knew, because he had seen all the crucial incidents on television. When he came into our room, his face told us all we needed to know. I went to have a shower and Phil Sharp was in tears for me. He only managed to say, ‘You poor bastard.’ He knew that I would carry the can for the errors made by Jens.

  I telephoned Julia and we both cried. She said, ‘They won’t blame you. All the TV pundits are saying how well you refereed and how the linesman let you down.’ I kept telling myself that was right. I kept saying to myself that I had not done anything wrong, that they were Jens’s mistakes. I knew and accepted that, as the referee, I was ultimately responsible for every decision during a game, but the mistakes had not been mine.

  After a sleepless night I spoke to Volker Roth (chair of the UEFA referees’ committee and a member of the FIFA referees’ committee). He said, ‘The World Cup is over for Jens. For you, we’ll have to wait and see.’

  We did not have long to wait. Carlos Alarcon led the debrief that afternoon and, for the first time, I saw the video replays of the disallowed Vieri goal. It was not even a close call. When the ball was played forward, Vieri was about a yard onside. He timed his run perfectly and headed home from close range. It was a shocking mistake to flag for offside. Jens told the debrief, ‘Graham had no alternative than to accept my signal. It was my mistake.’ But, to compound the mistake, I cautioned Vieri for the way he gestured at Jens in protest.

  The Vieri incident was shown over and over again. I felt the South Americans were making a point about shoddy European officials. Eventually they moved on to another incident where it was felt I’d missed an Italian player leading with an arm as he challenged. Then the stoppage time incident was shown. It began when I awarded Italy a free-kick near the halfway line. The Croatia players were trying to delay the restart to use up time and so I stayed close to the halfway line instead of moving towards the penalty area where the Italians were obviously going to play the ball. I should have ignored Croatia’s time-wasting tactics and positioned myself closer to the ball’s ‘drop zone’. From where I was, I had seen a bit of pulling and pushing from both sets of players in the crowded penalty area but nothing excessive. Jens stuck up his flag, but the South Americans at the debrief were very critical of my positioning.

  The inquest, covering three or four incidents, lasted three-quarters of an hour. I knew I was beaten long before the end. The South Americans were like a dog with a bone. They had found a way to blame me as well as Jens. Eventually I said, ‘We’re going round and round in circles here. Can we just accept I did my very best in the game? I don’t think I have anything to blame myself for. You’ve said what you’ve said, you’ve marked how you’ve marked and what will happen, will happen. Can we just leave it at that?’ I added, ‘If anyone in this room feels I have let them down I will apologize here and now.’

  All around the room, referees and assistants shook their heads. Someone said, ‘No, you have not let us down.’

  Jens maintained he was correct about the stoppage-time shirt-pulling, but he had no defence about the Vieri ‘offside’. He couldn’t have. After the debrief he said to me, ‘I k
now I’ve finished my World Cup. I feel bad about that but I feel even worse because I think I’ve also finished yours.’ We both suspected I was not going to referee again at that World Cup. I had toiled so hard for so long to get to my second major tournament but I was probably going home early again.

  I was told that the next day I needed to have a telephone conversation with George Cumming from FIFA. At the appointed time I went to the function room that FIFA had commandeered as an office and took the call. I can still remember taking the phone into the corridor and can remember details of that corridor. I can remember all of the phone call. George Cumming said, ‘I am really sorry, Graham, about what has happened.’

  I said, ‘So am I. But this wasn’t my fault.’

  He said, ‘Unfortunately in refereeing, as you well know, the referee takes responsibility for what happens during a game. That is life. I am afraid that you can have no more games at this World Cup.’

  I said, ‘Is that fair? Is that right?’

  He said, ‘No. Welcome to FIFA.’

  At that point he told me to stay strong and that I was still young enough to referee in the 2006 World Cup. He insisted that I was very highly thought of, et cetera et cetera. I may have laughed; I very probably swore. I definitely thought that was all complete nonsense. I was being dumped from one World Cup so I was hardly likely to be called up for another.

  It cannot have helped that Italy, a major football power, were involved but FIFA did not want me to tell anyone that I had been axed because of the controversy over the Italy–Croatia game. They wanted me to keep that little secret to myself. I was expected to stay strong and positive, remain with the other referees – and then go home when the cut was made for the officials for the knockout stage. If I went home before the cull, the focus would be on me and the reason for my being sent home – perhaps the unfairness would be remarked upon. If I went home at the same time as everybody else, I would just be another referee who had not survived the cut.

  I went back into the FIFA office and said I wanted to go home. They told me to take some time out, play some golf, go into Tokyo. They didn’t say ‘But don’t go home’ but that is what they meant. Although I was at a very low ebb, I knew that, if I said the wrong thing, or did the wrong thing, I could damage all my future prospects with FIFA. I remembered again, as I had at Euro 2000, that my friend Paul Durkin had hurt his international career by reacting badly when he was sent home early from the 1998 World Cup.

  Not for the first or last time at a major tournament, I was in turmoil. But, in that room in Japan with the FIFA men, I started to pull myself together. I said I’d go for a walk to clear my head and let them know what I was going to do in an hour or so. My family and close friends had been incredibly supportive and I told myself I was also at the finals representing all of England’s referees. I returned to my room and telephoned one of them: my dad.

  He analysed my game blow-by-blow, suggesting where I could have done better. That was the last thing I needed, frankly, but then he said, ‘It doesn’t matter though. We all love you. Don’t come home. I’ve brought you up to fight and be strong. When you eventually come home you can hold your head high.’ I knew he was right about needing to show that I was strong. I went back to the FIFA officials and told them, to their obvious relief, that I’d had a change of heart. I said I would be training with my colleagues the following morning.

  So, the next day, I tried to slip back into a normal routine. As usual I went for a short, brisk ride on a mountain bike as soon as I got up. After breakfast I talked to Volker Roth. He was unhappy with what was happening to me and told me that, if he thought it would make a difference, he would offer to resign. We both understood that it wouldn’t make a scrap of difference and so he said, ‘It is better that I stay and fight to get you another appointment than walk away.’

  I appreciated our talk, but it lasted longer than I realized and I arrived in the lobby at 9.02 – two minutes after the coaches had left for training. I got back on the mountain bike and sped off and was almost killed by one of our buses that had been sent back to pick me up. As I pedalled around a corner, it forced me into the side of the road and I fell into a bush.

  I picked myself up and finished the three-mile bike ride to the training ground. I arrived as the other referees were starting their warm-up lap – so I did it on the bike. The class clown was back and everyone had a smile on his face. Word later reached me of how impressed FIFA were with my attitude. And, thanks to Roth’s influence, I did get another appointment – as fourth official to Pierluigi Collina at Japan versus Turkey. Just as I had picked myself up off the floor after my cycling accident, I felt that I was managing to end my World Cup positively. But it was definitely ending.

  The time arrived when it was announced who was staying and who was going. Perhaps there were one or two were borderline cases but most of the officials knew in their hearts whether they were staying or going home. I knew I was heading for Tring.

  My bag was packed but, before I could get away, all the referees were taken out for dinner on a boat in Tokyo. I felt real sympathy for Japan’s Toru Kamikawa, who was a victim of FIFA politics. The South Korean official Kim Young-joo had suffered a nightmare in the Brazil versus Turkey game so he could not survive into the next stage of matches. FIFA felt that it would be incorrect to let a ref from the other host nation continue, hence Kamikawa was rejected.

  There was a karaoke machine on the boat and Kamikawa sang a Japanese folk song with tears in his eyes. A sense of honour is a central strand of Japanese life. He felt he had let down his country. Of course he had not, but seldom can a song have been delivered more mournfully. I gave a terrible rendition of ‘Delilah’ – with special emphasis on the line ‘Why, why, why? …’ – but it had far less effect on the room.

  The next day those of us who were going home were paid our fees – in cash. I received $22,000 in notes, which I then carried in my hand luggage all the way home. Well, not all of it – I handed over a sizeable amount to pay for the excess weight of my cases, which were stuffed with souvenirs for my family and friends. I was too weary and deflated to argue or put the souvenirs into my hand luggage. I just paid up and then flew home alone. It was a long, long journey.

  There is one more observation to make about the 2002 World Cup. When Jens flagged for a foul, and forced me to disallow Italy’s late goal, it was because he had seen Filippo Inzaghi tug the shirt of a Croatian defender. That defender was Josip Simunic – the man I was to show the yellow card to three times at the 2006 World Cup.

  CHAPTER TWENTY

  Gerrard, Zidane and a Full Set

  By now you will see that my final years as a referee were punctuated by the big, set-piece tournaments: the World Cups and European Championships. After the 2002 World Cup, there came two seasons in which I was building towards Euro 2004 – or so I believed. But 2002/03 did not start well.

  Footballers often suffer ‘hangovers’ after European or World Cup finals. So do some referees. A major tournament takes its toll on players and officials. Whether they perform well or badly at the tournament, whether luck is with them or deserts them, the vast physical and mental commitment involved makes it a draining experience. Inevitably, once the tournament is over, they relax and try to recuperate. Then, when they return to domestic action the following season, it is difficult for them to pick up the pace again. The summer ‘break’ is never very long, of course. England’s professional referees are only allowed two weeks of complete inactivity before starting training again – gently at first. In week one of pre-season training, I only did a bike ride and a jog. In week two I did three activities and made them more strenuous. The amount of exercise built up and I expected to be fit by the second week in July, because that was when we normally went away somewhere for a training week and usually underwent the fitness tests.

  I never got the opportunity to build my momentum and form in 2002/03 because, after one game, I knew I could not finish top of the English re
fereeing rankings. Well, more accurately, after two games. Because of my commitment to my local clubs, I refereed a friendly between Tring Athletic and Tring Corinthians, but I shouldn’t have. I was due to take charge of my first ‘official’ fixture – Nottingham Forest versus Preston – the following evening and should have cancelled my local fixture, but I did not want to let them down. So we got home from two weeks’ holiday in Puerto Pollensa, in Majorca, on the Sunday, and on the Tuesday I did my Tring thing and on the Wednesday I took charge at Forest.

  I still maintain that I had a decent game at Forest, and yet the assessor stuffed me. He gave me such a poor mark that I knew my average for the season would not be, could not be, high enough to make me number one. If a football team lose their first game, they don’t think that their season is over, but for a referee, one bad mark in August can put him in a position from which he cannot recover.

  Let me explain about this business of wanting to be number one. George Cumming’s motto for referees at the World Cup was ‘Summa Petenda – aim for the highest’. When I was growing up, the adage that was drummed into me by my dad and mum was, ‘Good, better, best. Never let it rest, until your good be better and your better best.’ Perhaps because of that little verse, or because of something in my own character, I had to strive to be the best at refereeing. When I was working my way up, I would look at those who were getting better marks and think to myself, ‘What are they doing better than me? How can I improve my performances to overtake them?’

  That was competitive, but it was striving to improve myself, not to damage them. That was a very different attitude to the one I encountered once I was number one. Then some of those ranked below me thought, ‘What can we do to undermine Pollie? How can we knock him down?’ I hope you can understand the difference in the two attitudes, because I believe the difference is profound.