The quality of the 2006 edition of the World Cup has been generally excellent. There have been fine examples of offensive soccer (particularly prized for those of us who remember suffering through Italia ’90); some hard-fought matches full of incident, including even one or two of the scoreless draws; delicious minutes of unbearable tension, such as during the incredible—and bizarre—Australia v. Croatia match last night; and much more.

The quality of the officiating, however, only continues to grow as a concern. For the first week or so of this World Cup, the main worries were the quantity of yellow cards, the refusal to grant penalties even in the most flagrant circumstances, and some iffy performances from linesmen. Worrisome, but at least survivable.

But then things started to get much more bizarre and strange. Even more bookings than before, including some straight-up red cards; hence matches finishing up with only nineteen men on the pitch. A sudden rash of iffy penalties. Goals that went over the line but didn’t count; and offside goals that did.

And then last night, a World Cup first: Three yellow cards for a single player, in the same game. (They’re supposed to be sent off after their second.) That’s about as egregious an error as I can imagine. The reason they call it a “booking”, after all, is that after the referee shows the player the card, he writes it down in his book.

Okay, maybe that referee—one Graham Poll, from England—just has a little trouble reading his own handwriting. But there were four other officials on duty, yet none of them seems to have noticed anything either; or if they did, they didn’t say anything. Including the reserve referee, who had nothing else to do but sit on the sidelines and watch the game on a television monitor.

It’s just flabbergasting. When was the last time a college basketball player was erroneously left in a Final Four game for ten minutes after picking up his fifth foul? Seems inconceivable to me; but then the NCAA has never been run by a Eurocrat.

I suppose the one saving grace in all this is that, most of the time, the officiating insanity has cut both ways. (Though not always when Team USA was on the pitch…but then I would say that, wouldn’t I?) So in that sense, contrary to the headline above, it hasn’t been Super Bowl XL all over again. But it still has to stop.

I have three recommendations for addressing the situation. First, there should be more communication amongst the officials. In American football, the officials always conference before making a decision on a penalty. So why haven’t the World Cup referees been chatting with their colleagues on their little headset thingies before deciding whether to issue a card, or grant a penalty, or such? If nothing else, it would give some of the more hot-headed officials the opportunity to cool off for a second before booking a player for ordinary dissent or some other marginal-yet-visceral insult to their authority.

Second, start seriously considering instant replay. As I mentioned before, there’s already a spare official sitting there watching the game on a monitor. So for the absolutely most critical questions—such as whether a ball went over the goal-line, or whether a goal-scorer was clearly offsides—why not use him? Fans of American football already know, all too well, how instant replay can be fallible in its own right; but it can help if used sparingly and under proper guidelines. With every single goal being so incredibly important in soccer, surely it would be worth the effort to correct even two or three of the worst officiating blunders of each World Cup. Imagine a world where the “Mano de Dios” goal had never counted…

Third, make the referees’ jobs easier by attacking the epidemic of diving, play-acting, protesting players. This is admittedly a tall order; but I have a modest proposal for a first step: A new award, to be given out at every future World Cup, for the player who most valiantly stays on his feet and plays on after receiving the hardest of fouls.

The award should be given a name that evokes machismo, or nobility, or preferably both. I can’t think of anything super-terrific off the top of my head, so for now I’ll just call it the “Tough Man Trophy”. (Hmm…perhaps Ford would be interested in sponsoring it. Do they sell “Built Ford Tough” trucks in Europe? In South America?)

The winner would be given a nice trophy…and a cool €1,000,000. Suppose that would be enough to keep the odd Italian on his feet?

Mmm…now that is a poser…