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| June 24, 2002 | Monday | Rabi-us-Sani 12, 1423 |
Top Spanish official quits
ULSAN (South Korea) June 23: Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) President Angel Maria Villar has resigned from the FIFA Referees’ Commission, a federation spokesman said Sunday.
Villar, who is a vice-president of FIFA, made his decision a day after Spain were defeated by South Korea on penalties in the quarterfinals of the World Cup. Spain had two goals controversially disallowed during the match.
Villar has made it clear that, in his capacity as Spanish football federation president, he would be making a formal protest to world football’s governing body about the standard of refereeing.
“I think the referees have made serious errors,” he told sports daily Marca in an interview published on Sunday.
“We will be presenting a complaint about the conduct of the officials in which we will explain that we have been negatively affected by their decisions.
“The damage has now been done, but we want to make sure that this sort of thing does not happen again.”
Villar’s complaints come in the midst of a row about the quality of refereeing at the World Cup.
Spain and Italy have been particularly incensed at decisions that they felt led to their elimination from the tournament.
Earlier, FIFA spokesman Keith Cooper admitted that “major mistakes” had been made in the finals.
“There have been one or two major mistakes which are a cause for concern,” he said. “Referees are only human and errors can never be entirely discounted.”—Reuters
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