yes i see where you are coming from, some officials have been making bad calls. but some would argue that the refereeing is part of the game and instituting video replays etc might unnecessarily complicate matters and ruin the flow of the game.
i play soccer in an amatuer league every weekend and although the referees generally are not of a high standard, I still enjoy it. its part of the game.
Disparate levels of play do not require arbitrariness in officiating. I don't do soccer at any level, but in my spare time I do work and hold a certification as a tournament judge for Magic (the card game: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Magic:_The_Gathering). The DCI -- sanctioning body for organized Magic -- has formal standards for officiating which work at and scale from the smallest local game shop tournaments all the way up to massive events with large cash prizes and a pro tour. And one of the biggest goals is to ensure consistency: enforcement shouldn't and can't vary from judge to judge, because that would fundamentally damage the integrity of the entire tournament system.
Given that as background, the lack of consistency I see in World Cup officiating literally makes me shudder. And the worst part is that the usual straw men brought up in response -- massive delays due to replay, etc., etc., -- are, well, just straw men. A few simple, non-game-disrupting, changes (a highly-relevant example: let a team captain or a coach ask an official to state the foul for which a penalty has been issued, something which, so far as I'm aware, practically every other organized sport in the world does) could vastly improve both the actual and perceived consistency and fairness of soccer, but FIFA doesn't seem to care enough to do anything.
Hey, I'm also a former DCI Tournament Organizer AND sometimes unofficial football judge (not FIFA approved or anything :) ), and I'd say that FIFA does look for consistency.
DCI actually "gets" the fact that punishments should vary according to level of play (look for Rules Enforcement Levels or REL for short), and so do the local football judge federations - when I played a small football tournament, the judge routinely overlooked some small infractions that would warrant a call in a high-level match (not throwing correctly the ball from the sideline, ball position for free throws, etc).
FIFA officiating was pretty bad, true, and I personally think that instant replay (sparingly used) could improve it a bit as well.
I also like the harsher leagues (someone mentioned the English Premier) over the more foul-prone ones (Italy and my own country Uruguay are egregious examples)
DCI actually "gets" the fact that punishments should vary according to level of play
Indeed, which is one of the things that makes it scale so well. Felten's insistence on uniformity doesn't address that at all, really, and I think it exposes one of the big weaknesses of his argument: a Magic pro tour event doesn't just have stricter enforcement, for example. It also has a huge staff of officials, additional supplies and equipment, and all sorts of other stuff. From that point of view, insisting on having no "official" clock at the World Cup because your local neighborhood game doesn't have one just seems silly; when you get to a certain level you can and should introduce those things.
FIFA officiating was pretty bad, true, and I personally think that instant replay (sparingly used) could improve it a bit as well.
I don't personally care one way or another about replay. I would require referees to explain their calls on request (as a Magic judge I don't even have a choice -- I have to explain my rulings even if no-one asks me to), and look for a way to deal with fouls which occur but aren't immediately witnessed by the referee (golf, where you're expected to call an official on yourself if you do something wrong, is a good example; soccer could have a similar system and it would help with things like Thierry Henry's handball).
I agree that the video replay may/may not affect the flow of the game. but i guess what i'm saying is that I enjoy the game alot, regardless of the quality of refereeing. To fifa, it probably takes alot of will power to implement changes that may or may not work to something that 1) people already enjoy 2) is growing in popularity 3) is probably the most played sport in the world in its current state 4)they make alot of money off
What would be interesting if a well known respected soccer league (italian/spanish/english) instituted video replays in some manner into the games to test this out. then we would know how it would affect the game (flow, behaviour etc). all we have right now is alot of personal subjective opinions (including my opinions), which we have no way to validate. =)
