BERLIN - English referee Graham Poll, who showed a Croatian player three
yellow cards before sending him off in a World Cup match, is quitting
international officiating.
Poll told Britain's Sky Sports television Thursday that he considered
retiring from all soccer after his blunder, which meant a Croatian player stayed
on the field three minutes longer than he should have. The result of the match
was not affected and Croatia was eliminated.
However, the 42-year-old referee said he decided to continue refereeing in
the English Premier League.
Poll said he took complete responsibility for the error. He showed Josip
Simunic a yellow card twice, but did not eject him. Simunic was shown a third
yellow card and sent off after the game ended.
"Certainly what happened a week ago is something I deeply regret.
Inexcusably, I made an error in law, and most mistakes, most discussion, most
controversy, surrounds opinion, and they are things we can always debate.
"But what I did was an error in law, and for that there can be no dispute. It
wasn't caused by a FIFA directive or because I referee differently than what I
do in the Premier League," Poll said.
Poll said he did not realize he made a mistake until told after the match.
Several sleepless nights and thoughts of retirement followed.
"The first two or three days you think about retirement, you think it's all
gone wrong, and you start to doubt your ability, but that didn't last for too
long," he said. "Because of 26 years of hard work and countless games that have
gone extremely well — you know it's probably been my best season ever — I will
be back refereeing in the Premier League next season.
"It's time for me to let go of the mistake — nobody got hurt from the error,
nobody died. ... What I did was a public mistake, but it didn't affect
qualification, it didn't affect the outcome of the match."
Poll worked at the two previous World Cups and was also a part of the 2000
European Championship.
"None have gone right, none have worked for me, for various reasons," Poll
said. "We say in life one thing goes wrong it's unlucky, if two things go wrong
then maybe you're really unlucky, but if it's three then you have to look at
yourself and say something isn't quite right."
