French referee Alain Sars has said he has needlessly been made the scapegoat for England's failure to beat Finland in their World Cup qualifier midweek. The Frenchman was criticised for only booking Finland's goalkeeper Antti Niemi after he brought down Teddy Sheringham just outside the box and then judged a Ray Parlour shot not to be a goal even though the ball crossed the line. Speaking in an interview with the French paper, L'Equipe, Sars pointed out: "It is so important nowadays for a country to qualify for the World Cup that they need to blame someone when things are going wrong and the referees are usually the easiest targets. I don't feel responsible for England's result at all and anyway they had only one real opportunity to score."
He also explained why he showed Niemi a yellow card. "In such a case a
referee wonders if that player really had a chance to score. However I saw two Finnish defenders who could have intercepted the ball if Sheringham had shot. I assessed the striker had been tripped and that he the keeper deserved a yellow card."
Sars also called for the introduction of video evidence to rule out any other such incident like that surrounding Parlour's disallowed goal. "How do you think an assistant can see where the ball bounced when it's just hit the crossbar at 150kmh and comes out straight away? My assistant Pierre Ufrasi couldn't be on the goalline, he was on the last defender's line. People who are now criticising were in front of their television, and that is really bad luck for us." (PA)
Filed by Amanda Fennelly
