The quality of refereeing at the World Cup thus far is a sharp reminder to us of the lamentable standard of officiating in the Premier League. The Greatest Most Competitive League In The World has always been stained with a strange breed of egotistical referees, a tradition stretching from Jeff Winter to Mike Dean, encompassing the likes of Graham Poll and Mark Clattenburg.
Too many Premier League refs seem to confuse their role, mistaking their necessary job in implementing rules for the role as a kind of auteur, there to facilitate a certain 'style' of game of their own choosing.
This has led to the absurd scenario in which Clattenburg has approached games with his own "game plan", as he did for the infamous Chelsea/Spurs clash that ended in Leicester winning the league.
It was theatre. I went in with a game plan that I didn't want Tottenham Hotspur blaming Mark Clattenburg that they were going to lose the title.
It should have been three red cards to Tottenham. I allowed them to self-destruct so all the media, all the people in the world went: 'Tottenham lost the title'.
I helped the game. It certainly benefited the game by my style of refereeing.
Some referees would have played by the book; Tottenham would have been down to seven or eight players and probably lost and they would've been looking for an excuse.
But I didn't give them an excuse, because my gameplan was: Let them lose the title.
To this hall of shame we can add Mark Halsey, who gormlessly admitted on CNN that he willfully brought the game into disrepute by arranging for a Premier League player to get booked in accordance with the players wish.
I had a player who asked if I'd caution him because they had a midweek game followed by a big derby game.
He's just said 'listen, look, we've got a game Tuesday. If I don't get cautioned now and get one Tuesday, I'll miss the big derby on the Saturday.
So he just asked me if I could show a yellow. And I did actually.
I said to him, 'Alright, we've got 10 minutes to go, when I give a free-kick against you' -- and I knew I would because he's that sort of player -- 'just leather the ball 50 yards away and I can caution you for dissent.'
He came up to me at the end of the game and said, 'Thanks for that Mark'.
Unbelievable.
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