I thought that had already been decided, previously.
Along with the two finalists and final result.
Do we really care, International football is side show these days
Bit of a misleading thread title. The Ruskies haven't chosen a British ref because there wasn't one on Fifa's list for selection would be more accurate.
Wasn't Clattenburg on the shortlist ?
I really can’t think of a good English referee to be honest. There are a few who are just, well, ok, but no one remotely near the quality of Howard Webb.
Even Webb was nothing special, at least not on the level of Collina (then to be perfectly honest, I cannot think of any comparable officials in the modern game).
I thought Webb was decent. You don't get to ref a World Cup Final without having something about you.
I read his book recently, and he gives massive, massive credit to one of the assistants in his team (Mike something, I think). He speaks well of the other one too, but one of them really was his right hand man in helping him with making decisions, and was apparently nearly always spot on with them, he trusted him implicitly to call it right on the offsides, and the cards if he needed help on deciding on a yellow or read.
On the flip side, it was interesting how his Euro 2012 tournament ended in the group stage, when one of his assistants failed to flag for an offside that resulted in a winning goal for someone. They knew when they saw the replays after the game, and had the post-match debrief with the assessors that their tournament was over, and the lino who made the duff call was in bits over it. Sure enough, his team were omitted from the retained list for the knockouts, and home they went.
Just showed that there are direct consequences for the officials too when they make shit decisions.
Yes, Mike Mullarkey and Darren Cann. They were a good team, you're right there.