YOKOHAMA, 25 June — The world governing body FIFA will today deal with Germany’s protest against the yellow card their striker Oliver Neuville received during the quarterfinal match with the United States.
FIFA spokesman Keith Cooper said yesterday that the disciplinary committee will look into the matter on the day of Germany’s semifinal with South Korea.
“The DFB (German football federation) fully appreciates the difficulty of the referee’s task in an emotionally played game, but asks for the yellow card to be revoked,” Cooper said.
The DFB claims that Neuville was unjustly booked by Scottish referee Hugh Dallas in Friday’s quarterfinal after a shoving incident which involved teammate Jens Jeremies and Claudio Reyna.
If the booking is upheld Neuville will be suspended for the final or third-place match in the case of another booking today.
Cooper also said he did not want to comment on remarks from German goalkeeper Oliver Kahn in which he hinted that some bad refereeing may continue in the semifinal.
“We have covered the issue at failr length. We anticipate a good referee rather than a bad referee,” he said.
Italy had a goal controversially disallowed in their 2-1 round of 16 defeat against the Koreans and Spain were also seemingly robbed of two goals before losing the quarterfinal against Korea on penalties.
Kahn had Sunday urged his teammates to remain clam should the same happen again today under Swiss referee Urs Meier.
“We have to be prepared that one or two incidents will be decided against us. That is normal, that is called home field advantage,” said Kahn.
“(If we have a goal disallowed) I must say, if that doesn’t count we will score another one 10 minutes or an hour later,” Kahn said.
