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The trouble with referees is that they know the rules, but they do not know the game.

I'm aware that the World Cup is probably the greatest spectacle in the world of sport, and that's despite the referees that have been found to have fixed games specifically.

Coaches will do what they can but it doesn't necessarily bother me. You are an international referee for a reason. If things like that are going to ruffle your feathers, don't bother doing the job.

But there is something to the fact that we don't see games on the West Coast, or we don't see games on the East Coast, and stuff like that. It's so unfair, because there is a bias that takes place.

I'm persuaded that sports is the one place where the rules are pretty well set out, where fans are equal. And if you got game or you're a good official, you make it here, whether you're white or you're black.

Nowadays it would be reasonable to have an annual world championship.

Trouble is, we call politics a game, but it isn't one. There is no referee, and the teams make up the rules as they go along. You can't cry foul or offside in politics. Almost anything goes.

Comparisons are really no good in sport, especially if it is a comparison between different eras and generations, for there are so many variables that come into play, starting from the quality of the opposition to playing conditions.

As all of us with any involvement in sports knows, no two umpires or no two referees have the same strike zone or call the same kind of a basketball game.

The fewer rules a coach has, the fewer rules there are for players to break.