English referee Graham Poll claimed before yesterday's England match that FIFA had appointed arguably their best referee in Jorge Larrionda of Uruguay to referee the World Cup match between Germany and England.
Known as the King of the Red cards, Larrionda has the highest red card per match ratio in international matches, 94 in 140 or two reds every three games. He excelled at Germany 2006 refereeing four games...including the Portugal v France semi-final.
Unfortunately his inability to see with all the accuracy of a goal line camera no doubt means he'll be in for a bit of abuse from the English media during the match and the next forty-four years of post match analysis...
The English media have been over this before, remember Urs Meier, the Swiss referee who had the temerity to disallow a Sol Campbell goal against Portugal at Euro 2006?
The Sun orchestrated a campaign against this 'Urse-hole' relishing as many puns as they could dream up for the 'Swiss banker', eventually having whipped their readership into an orgiastic fondue of dribbling mentalness they published Herr Meier's personal details. The resulting 16,000 abusive emails and death threats saw Meier agreeing to take on police protection for him and his family, particularly after the Sun rented the field across the road from the Meier family home and planted a massive St George's Cross flag in it.
Some MP's even tabled a motion in the House of Commons criticising the quality of refereeing in the tournament. The BBC noted for it's fair play joined in and published all the funnier photos of Swiss stereotypes and referees.
We can only presume the distance from London to Montevideo will deter Sun journalists from tracking Larrionda down after the tournament... although I suspect the combine wailing and gnashing from the Englandshire FA will mean the King of the Red cards has refereed his last World Cup match.
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