Who's the poor bastard in the black?

I was going to write about FIFA’s attitude to technology before the start of the tournament but settled, instead, for a moan about Sepp Blatter’s hypocritical attitude to stuffing your pockets full of money in the name of football.

My idea was to look serious and warn darkly of controversy to come because the game’s ruling bodies are either unable or unwilling to get to grips with the modern age.

Well, that’s out the window now that – on day two – we already have our first is it/isn’t it? goal-line stooshie, in tonight’s Argentina v Ivory Coast game; so I’ll just have another rant.

Truth be told, on this occasion, the decision did not make a great deal of difference. Whether 2-1 or 3-1, we saw the first really top class team of this tournament – make no mistake, Ivory Coast are the genuine article and still stand every chance of qualification – wrap up three points in by far the best match of the first five.

Save for setting up a final ten minutes that probably made Jose Pekerman's heart beat quicker than Jonathan King's in a scout hut; there may turn out to be no harm done. Only goal difference and the final table will tell.

It would be hopelessly naive, however, to imagine that will always be the case. Refereeing controversies will be poured over and analysed on every TV station in every country in the world. Matches, qualification, even finals will swing on blown decisions that need never have been.

Personally, I used to have a bit of half-hearted sympathy for the rockist keep-football-pure campaign – no changing the beautiful game and all that. But, in reality, football has always been about embracing change – from the evolution of the match ball to politely asking players to refrain from kicking the tar out of the goalkeeper and smoking at corners.

To go to extremes, it was four years after the founding of the FA that Queen’s Park established the first official rulebook – crossbars, free-kicks, half-time and pitch-markings; the scientific game.

And the current custodians of football haven’t been shy in coming forward – with new interpretations on discipline and every aspect of the game heaping more pressure on the man in luminous yellow. But, somehow - when it comes to actually aiding officials - we’ve stalled.

Can it really be true that cash-rich FIFA and it’s increasingly tyrannical leader cannot manage what even the Pimmsed-up blazers at the Lawn Tennis Association – an organisation, remember, that is unable to countenance something as revolutionary as dyed clothing – can?

The sad irony of this incompetence is that it usually leads to the vilification of referees, despite the fact the majority are extremely good. In pointing out that the referees need technological help, I’m not saying they are poor, so much as that they are human just like the rest of us.

Dorinel Munteanu's disallowed goal at Euro 96, which effectively knocked Romania, is a case in point.

Everyone who saw Munteanu's 25-yard shot in the 1-0 defeat to Bulgaria knows that the goal was good – yet Peter Mikkelsen, the Danish referee, had other ideas, and who could blame him? All he had to go on in that spilt-second were his own two eyes - a quaint notion ditched by the rest of the sporting world decades ago.

In Romania, they're still whining about it. I don’t blame them. Can you imagine how a British team would react?

Meanwhile, in Tokyo in 2002, the ever self-satisfied Blatter lamented the standard of refereeing and warned it must improve in 2006. The world’s FIFA listed referees, in response, said technology would have to be found to assist them.

Well, it hasn't and it won't. And, just like FIFA, I know who I'll blame - but they won't be carrying a whistle.