London, Aug 26 (DPA) Referee Howard Webb admitted Thursday that he should have shown Dutch midfielder Nigel de Jong a straight red card for his foul on Xabi Alonso in July's World Cup football final defeat to Spain.
London, Aug 26 (DPA) Referee Howard Webb admitted Thursday that he should have shown Dutch midfielder Nigel de Jong a straight red card for his foul on Xabi Alonso in July's World Cup football final defeat to Spain.
De Jong only received a yellow card for his flying high tackle on Alonso but Englishman Webb now says he would have brandished red had he had a better view of the incident.
'Having seen it again from my armchair, I would red-card him,' Webb told the Guardian newspaper.
'The trouble in the actual game was that I had a poor view of that particular incident. I was looking through the back of Alonso and though I could see the foot was high, I could not be certain of the extent of the contact.
'It wasn't that I didn't want to send anyone off because it was a World Cup final, though I was mindful of the fact that the game was the pinnacle of the players' careers as well as of mine. I just wasn't prepared to take a guess 25 minutes into the game.'
The 39-year-old official dished out a record 14 yellow cards in the final in Soccer City, Johannesburg, including two to Holland's John Heitinga, who was sent off in Spain's 1-0 extra-time win.