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The 2006 FIFA World Cup generated various controversies, including onfield disputes, critiques of official decisions, and team salary issues. more...

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Most centered around specific refereeing decisions, which led many of the world's media to claim that the referees were spoiling the World Cup. Numerous World Cup records were also set by controversial calls, including Graham Poll's three-card error and Valentin Ivanov's record number of cards in a single match.

FIFA's "Fair Play" agreement also came under intense scrutiny during the tournament, particularly during the second-round match between Portugal and Netherlands.

Refereeing

Errors

Three yellow cards issued (Croatia vs. Australia, group stage)

The deciding game for the Group F runners-up place, Croatia vs. Australia saw English referee Graham Poll mistakenly issue three yellow cards to Croatian Josip Šimunić before sending him off. Šimunić was shown a yellow card by Poll in the 61st minute for a foul on Australian Harry Kewell. In the 90th minute, Poll held up a yellow card in front of Šimunić for a foul, but did not follow it with a red card, as is required upon a second yellow card. In the 93rd minute, after Poll had blown the final whistle, Šimunić approached Poll angrily and gave him a push. Poll thus issued Šimunić with a 3rd yellow card and also showed him the red card.

Questions were raised as to why Poll's assistants Phil Sharp and Glenn Turner, and fourth official Kevin Stott, had also failed to realise the error. Poll later denied any blame should be placed upon the other officials saying, "I was the referee, it was my error and the buck stops with me". Poll reported that the officials had felt "disbelief" upon hearing of the error in the dressing room after the game. He and the other officials consequently reviewed the DVD of the game, and Poll realised that his "dream was over".

Football Federation Australia chief executive John O'Neill later said that Australia could have had grounds for a "very strong appeal" should Croatia have won the match. Poll also explained the reason for his mistake by saying that "he incorrectly noted down the name of the Australia number three Craig Moore when booking Simunic for the second time and failed to realise his error".

Read more at Wikipedia.org