When in doubt Nielsen whistles which is not how Fifa want the rules to be interpreted

When in doubt, Nielsen whistles, which is not how Fifa want the rules to be interpreted in this World Cup.Philip Don, head of referees at the Premier League, has yet to be convinced. “It is a matter of finding the right balance between letting the game flow and picking up the main offences,” he says. “The behaviour of the players seems to be very sporting at the moment. There’s very little dissent, very little protest at decisions.

It will be interesting to see if that lasts into the later stages when there’s more at stake.” Two red cards, for Diao of Senegal and Thierry Henry of France – Uruguay’s Dario Silva should also have been sent off in the same game – early in the second round of group matches suggested a heightening of the tension.One game can sour the atmosphere, but little has yet spoiled the refereeing Disneyland. The short-cut system of justice – two yellows or one straight red and an automatic one-match ban – has increased players’ willingness to co-operate No one is inclined to take the risk at this stage. A clearer line of communication has been established between Fifa, the referees and the coaches to iron out the sort of misunderstandings which blighted the early stages of recent World Cups. In February, the World Cup referees gathered in Seoul to be instructed on Fifa’s latest interpretation of the rules and they did so again just before the tournament began.In encouraging referees to react to the feel of a game rather than laying down tablets of stone on particular types of foul, Fifa have fostered a type of self-policing. Players are mostly good referees; they just hide the fact well. They know when they have committed a foul, for all their ritual protest, and they know when they have not. Like the referees here, they prefer to be given the benefit of the doubt.

No player feels more foolish or more vulnerable to attack by his teammates than when he has hurled himself to the turf only to find the ball has moved swiftly into the space where he should have been and the referee has waved play on. It is remarkable how quickly controversy and injuries are forgotten. Minds are not on protest but on playing.Fifa can take credit for persevering with a long-term revision of refereeing policy, a reaction to the desperate negativity of the 1990 World Cup. Slowly, the balance of power has shifted away from the defender, with the eradication of the tackle from behind, the restructuring of the offside law and, more recently, by banning goalkeepers from handling deliberate back-passes.Each of the moves was criticised at the time, but, 12 years on, referees have become more confident in their ability to let the game flow. No longer do they have to impose their authority at the first sign of physical contact Just how long the amnesty will last is another matter. Players will exploit leniency as ruthlessly as any loophole and, with giant screens replaying incidents in slow motion to the crowd, referees are coming under increasing scrutiny.

But the notion that European referees are the best in the world might not stand up to examination in the coming weeks. Maybe it is time we asked the better ones here to help us out in the Premiership.. The French go to the voting booths today to elect a new parliament. It is supposed to be one of the most important days in the country’s Fifth Republic, as the left and the right desperately try to fight off the threat of the National Front But nobody cares. The target of the majority used to be Jean-Marie Le Pen – now it is Roger Lemerre.