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Revision as of 20:32, 1 July 2006 by 86.14.154.8 (talk) (→England vs. Portugal)(diff) ← Previous revision | Latest revision (diff) | Newer revision → (diff)Horacio Marcelo Elizondo (born November 4 ,1963, in Quilmes) is an Argentine international football referee. He emerged as a controversial figure due to some of his decisions during Switzerland v. South Korea and England vs. Portugal in the 2006 FIFA World Cup receiving worldwide media attention.
Background
Elizondo completed studies in physical education, and started refereeing after finishing the AFA course. His debut in the Argentine first division was in the Deportivo Español-Belgrano de Córdoba match in 1992. He was named international in 1994, and directed his first international match on October 9 1994 between Ecuador and Colombia for the 1998 World Cup qualifications.
2006 FIFA World Cup
He was appointed to represent Argentina in the
, together with country fellow assistants Darío García and Rodolfo Otero, to referee the opening game of the tournament between Germany and Costa Rica.
In his following match, the Czech Republic - Ghana game, he awarded Ghana a penalty for a challenge by Tomáš Ujfaluši, on Matthew Amoah. However, whilst he was sending off the Czech defender, Gyan (the player to take the penalty kick) prematurely took the penalty without waiting for the referee. Elizondo booked the Ghanan forward.
Horacio Elizondo refereed the match between England and Portugal on July 1st, where he sent Wayne Rooney off.
Switzerland vs. South Korea
Elizondo was also the referee in the Switzerland–Korea game. He awarded the Swiss a controversial goal overruling Rodolfo Otero's raised offside flag. Several players, including two defenders who were following Alexander Frei (Jin-Cheul Choi and Jin-kyu Kim), stopped playing when they saw the flag, expecting it to be accompanied by the referee's whistle. However no whistle was blown that would have signaled halt in the game. The ball was put into the path of Alexander Frei after being hit by Lee Ho's foot. According to some commentators and media, Lee Ho's action was not a mere deflection but an intentional move, what would make the offside void, supporting Elizondo's decision. However, the official FIFA rules seem to indicate that the offside decision should have been given. In addition, there seemed to be two handball fouls by Patrick Müller in the Swiss penalty area in the first half and second half. However, Elizondo adjudged the handball to be accidental and did not award the penalty for both times. Korean players and staff protested against the decisions by the referee, and Korea's coach Dick Advocaat was livid to the point that he had to be cautioned twice by the referee. A few days later, though, Advocaat relented and agreed that the decision was correct.
Elizondo's decisions have caused anger among Koreans, many of whom sent e-mails of protest to the official FIFA website. FIFA decided to take the strong step of blocking Korean Internet access to its website due to the too many protest e-mails from Korea. FIFA spokesman Pekka Odriozola said "FIFA's new media department detected this organized attack coming from Korea and, basically, had to block the messages from Korea to fifa.com to protect the Web site". In addition, many Koreans have left negative comments on the website of the Swiss embassy in Korea, and one man has been arrested for threatening to bomb the Swiss embassy in Seoul.
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England vs. Portugal
Elizondo also made a controversial decision in the England vs. Portugal when he sent Wayne Rooney off for stamping on a Portugese player, despite many believing that Rooney simply lost his balance, and that Ronaldo coerced him into making the decision. This severely limited England’s chances of winning and they consquently lost the match 3-1 penalties. During this shootout, the referee also disallowed Jamie Carragher's penalty for taking it too early. Carragher was forced to retake the penalty and subsequently missed, which knocked England out of the World Cup. He also booked 4 players, Carvalho, Petit, Hargreaves and Terry.
Other Competitions
Among the several international competitions in which he participated are the Copa América of 1997 and 1999), the U-17 World Cup of 1997 and 2005, the U-20 World Youth Championships of 2003 and 2005, the Olympic Games of 2004, and the FIFA Club World Championship of 2000. In the latter, he showed a red card to David Beckham in the tie between Manchester United and Necaxa.
He also refereed in the final matches of the 2002 and 2005 Copa Libertadores de América. In the 2005 tournament the two Brazilian finalist teams São Paulo FC and Atlético Paranaense lobbied Conmebol to have Elizondo as the main referee.
In the annual world referee ranking of the International Federation of Football History and Statistics (IFFHS), Elizondo was positioned 5th in 2001, and 12th in 2005.
Statistics
| Event | Games | 
|
|
|
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Copa Libertadores 2006 | 2 | 9 | 0 | 2 |
| CONMEBOL 2006 WC qualifiers | 9 | 28 | 0 | 1 |
| World Cup 2006 | 3 | 18 | 0 | 2 |
| Total | 13 | 54 | 0 | 5 |
References
- FIFA - 'Horacio Elizondo: “Referees need to be clinical'". Last accessed on June 1 2006.
- Prensa Latina - "Elizondo representará al arbitraje argentino". Last accessed on June 1 2006.
- CZECH REPUBLIC 0-2 GHANA
- "Suiza venció a Corea del Sur y se clasificó" - Clarín Template:Es icon
- "Switzerland 2 South Korea 0" - Professional Footballers Association
- Gaining advantage - Offside Offence - Page 12
- Chicago Sun-Times
- "World-South Korea take credit after controversial exit" - Reuters
- S. Korean man booked for threatening to blow up Swiss Embassy
- CONMEBOL - "Horacio Elizondo: 'Es vital para el réferi conocer bien a sus colaboradores'". Last accessed on June 1 2006.
- BBC news - "Beckham off in Man Utd epic". Last accessed on June 1 2006.
- RSSSF - "IFFHS' World's Best Referee of the Year 1987-2004". Last accessed on June 1 2006.
- IFFHS - "The World's best Referee 2005". Last accessed on June 1 2006.