The course of the 1982 World Cup detoured off the tracks for Team England when Diego Maradona scored Argentina’s first goal thanks to a blatant hand ball. The referee ‘missed’ the play and thereafter the score has been called ‘the Hand of God’. A winning player said, “In 1986, winning that game against England was enough. Winning the World Cup was secondary for us. Beating England was our real aim.”

FIFA refrained from commenting on that illegal goal and the global football organization has done little to address the problem in the following years. Ireland was eliminated from the present World Cup after France’s Patrick Henry handballed a ball to his feet. The referee only blew his whistle to signal a goal. Everyone else on the field and the viewing public saw the handball, but not the ref.

FIFA refused to review the play and the number of umpire miscues rose during the 2010 World Cup. Blown off-sides, missed penalties, and aberrant yellow cards were pandemic. My Uncle Carmine said that the only way for bookies to fix modern games is through the officials and it certainly looked like the referees were betting heavily on Germany, when they ignored a dog’s balls obvious goal by England’s Steve Lampard. The UK would have pulled even with the Deustchbags, yet FIFA announced that the error in judgment didn’t effect the 4-1 outcome.

Playing 1-1 is completely different from 1-0,

FIFA said the shot was too close to call.

The ball dropped a half-yard inside the net.

Blind as bats.

The on-field calls got worse,as Argentina’s Tevez scored against Mexico on an offside completely changing the tempo of that game.

FIFA’s response.

A ban against instant replay on the stadium screens.

See no evil. Hear no evil. We are not evil.

Bet Germany and Argentina.

The fix is in.