Apparently the Dutch football (soccer, for the uninitiated) player Ryan Babel on his Twitter page posted a photograph of Howard Webb, the Englishman who refereed the final of the World Championships between Spain and the Netherlands, wearing a Manchester United shirt. Babel did this after his team, Liverpool, lost a match against Manchester United, according to Babel (and Liverpool supporters all over the world) becuase of mistakes by Webb.
An article in the Guardian, moreover, quotes the Liverpool coach’s son as saying on Twitter: “Fergie has his puppet Howard Webb on a piece of string.” Fergie being Sir Alex Feruson, the Manchester United coach.
I didn’t see the match, so I have no idea if Babel is right or not. I did see the final of the World Championship and the Netherlands were robbed by Howard Webb. Iniesta’s deciding goal came after, in the space of a couple of minutes, the Netherlands were not given a corner kick, the Dutch player Elia was fouled and a Spanish player was off-side, an off-side which was apparently not seen by Webb or his linesmen.
I’m Dutch, so I’m clearly biased. But biased or not, there were 3 incidents leading up to the Spanish goal where Webb could or should have taken another decision than the one he took.
Howard Webb is not biased. His decisions just before the goal was scored influenced the result and lost Holland the match. In the 110 minutes before the goal he could and should have given a red card to several Dutch (De Jong’s clumsy, stupid karate tackle, Van Persie for some unnecessary, and thus stupid, fouls in quick succession, most Dutch defenders for an accumulation of what for some reason people nowadays call “professional fouls”) and several Spanish (Puyol, for his tackle on Robben when only Casillas was between Robben and the goal, most Spanish defenders for an accumulation of what for some reason people nowadays call “professional fouls” and Iniesta, the man who scored the only goal in the match, for a succession of many fouls, repeated diving and retaliating on Van Bommel) players.
Manchester Webb
The Netherlands lost, because of a stupid game plan in general, and because Webb influenced the course of the game. Had the match ended in penalty kicks, Spain would have lost and would have had reason to complain because of Webb’s failure to hand out red cards to a number of Dutch players in the early stages of the match.
Babel is wrong: Howard Webb is not biased. Or maybe he was, in the Manchester United – Liverpool match. He was definitely not biased during the World Cup final, or maybe his bias shifted every five minutes and the Netherlands were just unlucky.
The most likely conclusion would however seem to be that Howard Webb is just an incredibly incompetent referee, who should never be allowed near any match of the least importance.
