FIFA World Cup 2010: ESPN Commentators Vilify Malian Referee

It goes beyond the pale when a commentator on air uses terms such as stupid and slow to describe a referee, who to be fair wasn't bad at all. Should he have allowed the US final-minutes goal? Perhaps. Was it a bad call? Probably. But I don't think that warrants an irresponsible use of vitriolic terms on air.

John Harkes opined at the end of the match that most of the calls made by the referee were horrible. Being an American, I understand his emotions. But taking a census of the major calls in the game, beside the disallowed goal, one sees that most went against Slovenia, who got four yellow cards to the USA's one. Was John Harkes protesting those?

As to the yellow card against Findley which the ESPN English commentator called stupid on the ground that it wasn't an intentional handball, I will maintain that this didn't warrant such a strong, and indeed, shameful language. Handball situations in  football games are difficult calls to make because not all are clear-cut intentional fouls. How do you determine when a handball is intentional and when it is not, considering that these are split second decisions?

Going back to the disallowed goal. An objective observer would see that the players of both sides were tugging and pulling, so it wasn't  only the Slovenians who were guilty of this. The call could have gone either ways. By the way, many of such calls tend to favor the defending side when tugging and pulling are involved.

I am not against objection to bad officiating, my objection is to the use of vitriolic terms on air, particularly when it involves the only black referee so far. If you are black and are sensitive to centuries-long racial slurs such as blacks are stupid and slow, you do a double take when you hear these terms used against a referee who happens to be black. Certainly, referee Koman Coulibaly was not as bad (if at all) as the card-happy Spanish  referee, Alberto Undiano, who destroyed the Germany-Serbia match by his low tolerance, but I didn't hear the commentators of the match use such terms against him.

My point is, if you must show your open bias for a team or country on air, do so with restrain. I hope that ESPN caution their commentators. Don't get me wrong, my sympathies lay with the USA in this match, but I take exception as an African to the use of  the disgraceful terms  on air by the ESPN commentators. Listeners deserve better from them.