nostromo,
Please don't get me wrong ... I'm not trying to jump up and down and scream "conspiracy!" because I just don't have enough evidence to confirm this, but if you would just take a look at what I and others on this forum noticed then I think you would see what we mean. A ball that was clearly in bounds got crossed. The side judge started to follow the flight of the ball and all of a sudden in mid-flight he pointed back to the spot and called it out. It would maybe be excusable as a late call that he just froze on BUT THE FREAKING BALL WAS SO CLEARLY IN! It's hard to imagine that making the right call was a priority for him - try and see the reply again a few times and you'll see what I mean.
FIFA clearly benefits from a spread of the popularity of soccer around the world. No one would argue this and no one would argue that this gets facilitated a lot by an Asian team doing well in the World Cup. And it's not like they are going to get together before and guarantee a win or anything like that. But I can easily imagine them giving instructions to "push" one way or the other. It just happen that the opportunity to push came up in the Korea game and not Japan, that's all.
Please don't get me wrong ... I'm not trying to jump up and down and scream "conspiracy!" because I just don't have enough evidence to confirm this, but if you would just take a look at what I and others on this forum noticed then I think you would see what we mean. A ball that was clearly in bounds got crossed. The side judge started to follow the flight of the ball and all of a sudden in mid-flight he pointed back to the spot and called it out. It would maybe be excusable as a late call that he just froze on BUT THE FREAKING BALL WAS SO CLEARLY IN! It's hard to imagine that making the right call was a priority for him - try and see the reply again a few times and you'll see what I mean.
FIFA clearly benefits from a spread of the popularity of soccer around the world. No one would argue this and no one would argue that this gets facilitated a lot by an Asian team doing well in the World Cup. And it's not like they are going to get together before and guarantee a win or anything like that. But I can easily imagine them giving instructions to "push" one way or the other. It just happen that the opportunity to push came up in the Korea game and not Japan, that's all.
