English referee's World Cup fate in the balance

BERLIN, June 23 (Reuters) English referee Graham Poll will learn his World Cup fate either later today or tomorrow following his blunder in handing three yellow cards to the same player during yesterday's Croatia-Australia match.

Poll booked Croatia defender Josip Simunic three times, after 62 minutes, 90 minutes and in the 93rd minute -- the third minute of stoppage time -- when he finally sent him off in the Group F match in Stuttgart.

FIFA president Sepp Blatter told reporters today: ''I place my trust in the referee's committee who will meet very soon to make an assessment on his performance. I hope they will show the tact in their handling that this matter deserves.

''I cannot understand how the four people in the team refereeing the match, the referee, the assistants and the fourth official could have allowed this to happen. It is like they had a blackout,'' he told a media briefing.

''There were four people there, an evident error had been made. Someone should have said 'stop, stop, something is wrong here'.

''That's why they have the communication system. The assistants and the fourth official have the right to call on the referee and tell him. It is not understandable how this happened.'' Poll's linesmen were Philip Sharp and Glenn Turner of England while the fourth official was Kevin Stott of the United States.

A fifth official, used as a back-up in case the fourth official is called into the active refereeing team, was Gregory Barkey, also of the United States.

Markus Siegler, FIFA's director of communications added: ''we had a first in the history of the World Cup yesterday when one player was booked three times in the same match -- that is a little too much.'' FIFA were spared a logistical nightmare because the match ended in a 2-2 draw and Australia qualified for the next round with the Croatians being eliminated.

If Australia had lost the match, they would have had every right to protest the result. FIFA would then have been duty bound to replay yesterday's match.

In the most recent case where a referee committed a technical error -- last year's Asian World Cup qualifying playoff between Uzbekistan and Bahrain -- the match was replayed.

However, as Australia qualified they made no formal protest about Poll's error and neither did Croatia.

REUTERS DH RK1712