To tweet this: http://es.pn/9NIqyd
ESPN Radio’s Ron Flatter interviewed referee Koman Coulibay (who waved off US goal v Slovenia) today in Pretoria. It will be part of an ESPN Radio story on referees today at 6 p.m. ET on “FIFA World Cup Tonight.” Transcript, translated from French:
Ron Flatter, ESPN Radio: How much reaction did you get to the waving off of the goal in the US-Slovenia match?
Koman Coulibaly: I didn’t have any contact of the reactions. We are here. We don’t have access to what happens outside. The only people that have my number, for example, is my family.
ESPN: Coach Bob Bradley of the US suggested that, in some cases, decisions are made and not explained because it might be to make up for an earlier mistake. Is that something that you have seen happen? Is that something you have done?
Coulibaly: This is something that is said when people don’t know the job. The compensations never happened. I know that this is a debate. But a compensation is also one plus one. If you do one mistake, and you do another one, that’s two. In the case of a mistake, one and compensating for another one does not make zero. In math, one plus one is two. In refereeing, one plus one in terms of compensation is zero.
ESPN: Are you prepared to offer an explanation as to why the goal was not allowed by Maurice Edu?
Coulibaly: I am not ready to tell the explanation. What I did is that I gave to the refereeing commission the evaluation of the game, and if you have any questions, you ask them.
ESPN: Will you be working as a referee or do you know if you will be will be working as a referee again in this World Cup?
Coulibaly: No, I don’t believe I’m going to be refereeing another game. We have been booked in the first round, and there were many referees. And I don’t count on having another game. But I will be staying here, and if there’s any possibility, of course, I will be very happy. Otherwise, outside I will continue working, projecting to work at both the African Cup and the qualifying for the African Cup.
ESPN: Monsieur Coulibaly, merci beau coup.
Coulibaly: I insisted on speaking French to show that in FIFA there are four languages.
ESPN: Tres bien. Merci.
