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Whoever wins the World Cup, one definite loser will be soccer's battered image of fair play.

A record number of red cards, including four in one game and three in the first 46 minutes of another, suggests there is something fundamentally wrong with the world's most popular sport, although FIFA president Sepp Blatter has ripped the referees for mistakes and inconsistencies.

"I've noted that instructions aren't being followed consistently from one match to another," he said Wednesday. "When a coach complains to me that shirt-pulling earned his player a yellow card one night and nothing for his team's group rivals the next, how am I supposed to respond?

"And then there are the tackles from behind I've seen go unpunished and the violent conduct that has escaped sanction, not to mention the serious errors made in applying the rules."

Referees will again be in the spotlight at the World Cup quarterfinals ?a Germany-Argentina and Italy-Ukraine on Friday, England-Portugal and Brazil-France on Saturday.

It's not just the scything tackles, deliberate handballs, flying elbows, players feigning injury or diving to get penalties or opponents sent off.

There are all the other ugly components of foul play: shirt tugging, sly trips, ankle taps, body checks made to look like accidental collisions. A sinister recent trend is a player going down, apparently injured, while his opponents are attacking. The attacking team is honor bound to kick the ball out of play while the downed player gets treatment.

The pushing and shoving that happens at free kicks and corners also suggests the game is getting out of control.

Usually, such tactics don't warrant a yellow card. But they still happen and many critics say they are poisoning the game.

Maybe there's a way of weeding them out.

One suggestion is for a team to automatically lose a player when it reaches 20 fouls in a game. It would be up to the coach to decide who goes. At 30 fouls, another player would leave the field.

While that may seem unfair to a player who has been scrupulously clean and has not made a single foul, how about this for making up the coach's mind: If an individual player has made five fouls, he gets a yellow card. That puts him on warning that the next time he commits a serious foul, he will be off anyway. If the coach has to make up his mind who should be ejected, he might be more likely to choose his dirtiest player.

FIFA says such an idea has been considered and rejected, never getting as far as the international board, soccer's rulesmaking panel.

"We have had proposals of this type, but they just don't add up," said spokesman Andreas Herren. He said it would put even more pressure on the referee to keep count of all the fouls, then decide whether the next one warrants a red card for a player.

The persistent foul play at this World Cup ?a one called every 2 1/2 minutes ?a may prompt soccer's governing bodies to look at the laws and clean up the game. But FIFA says the rules already are good enough. The players were warned long ago and don't seem to be listening.

Portuguese striker Pauleta, who saw two teammates and two Dutchmen sent off in a 1-0 victory over the Netherlands, said official statistics for fouls in that game did not justify the wave of cards on his team.

"I think the referees have been excessive in showing yellow cards because of FIFA's pressure on them," he said. "They're feeling a lot of FIFA pressure because, if they don't do what they're told, they go home.

"We committed 10 fouls (against the Dutch) and got nine yellow cards. That explains a lot."

"Everything you look at in terms of fouls, yellow cards and red cards is distorted," said Arena, whose team held the Italians to a 1-1 tie but then went out in the first round after losing 2-1 to Ghana. "I have this belief that, if you have good players, you don't tell them how to play. You obviously instruct them and help them. If you have good refs, you don't tell them how to referee.

"These are supposed to be the best referees in the world. You bring them to the World Cup and then you tell them how to call the game? It's ridiculous. And it's been tremendously unfair. They've made a lot of bad decisions. They've cost a lot of teams real opportunities.

"I'm afraid one of the legacies of this World Cup will be officiating," Arena said. "And it's a shameful legacy; it shouldn't have come to this."

FIFA officials visited training sites of quarterfinal teams Wednesday to explain the rules and regulations being followed by the referees, but some teams weren't satisfied.

"I don't understand some situations when a player receives a yellow card," Ukraine coach Oleh Blokhin said. "I understand a card if a player cuts another from behind, but I don't understand yellow cards for two players who bump into each other. There is no logical reason for this.

"This is the reason this World cup has a record number of yellow cards, because we don't have correct decisions."

(AP via China Daily June 29, 2006)