The BBC reports that Englands only official in the World Cup - Graham Poll, is expected to making his way back from the World Cup tomorrow when FIFA announce the referees for the second round stage.
It is expected because of his performance last night in the Croatia v Australia game in which he made a number of errors, capped by the 'triple booking' of Josep Simunic before sending the Croatian player off.
For those familiar with the Premiership, there will not be too many tears shed at the high profile hammering that Poll has taken and what is surprising is that he was tipped to actually be in the running to officiate in the final.
Despite the failing of Poll over the booking, what I cannot understand (also echoed by Sepp Blatter) was that there is a 'team' of officials that work a game - including a fourth official and presumably this team is in contact with each other, yet at no time was Poll contacted to advise him of the mistake and to then correct it.
Slightly ironic is the fact that it is usually the English press who castigate an Egyptian or Tunisian referee for being incompetent, and it is one of our 'own' who is set to become the first refereeing casualty.
The standards have been fairly good so far in the tournament until yesterday (which also included Markus Merk's poor penalty award for Ghana) .
As we now head to the knock out stages it becomes even more important that the officiating is upto the high standards the tournament deserves.
It is expected because of his performance last night in the Croatia v Australia game in which he made a number of errors, capped by the 'triple booking' of Josep Simunic before sending the Croatian player off.
For those familiar with the Premiership, there will not be too many tears shed at the high profile hammering that Poll has taken and what is surprising is that he was tipped to actually be in the running to officiate in the final.
Despite the failing of Poll over the booking, what I cannot understand (also echoed by Sepp Blatter) was that there is a 'team' of officials that work a game - including a fourth official and presumably this team is in contact with each other, yet at no time was Poll contacted to advise him of the mistake and to then correct it.
Slightly ironic is the fact that it is usually the English press who castigate an Egyptian or Tunisian referee for being incompetent, and it is one of our 'own' who is set to become the first refereeing casualty.
The standards have been fairly good so far in the tournament until yesterday (which also included Markus Merk's poor penalty award for Ghana) .
As we now head to the knock out stages it becomes even more important that the officiating is upto the high standards the tournament deserves.