David Leggat: One wrong could lead Fifa to do right

Many years ago there was an amiable old cricket umpire in Christchurch.

Among his games, he officiated at secondary school matches, including the annual variety where rivalries were long and vigorously contested.

His name was Alec. One year a fastish young bowler had been sweating for several overs trying to remove the No 11 Auckland Grammar batsman without luck.

"Try going round the wicket to this bloke," Alec muttered as the bowler trudged past him back to his mark.

"Round the wicket please umpire," the bowler called from the end of his runup.

Two balls later, the batsman was struck on the top of his front thigh as he stretched forward.

The bowler turned and had barely raised his arms in a half-hearted appeal when Alec's finger shot skywards.

As he handed the bowler his sweater, Alec winked and whispered: "I told you it would work."

As I say, he was a friendly chap. But I doubt he'd have fancied the technological advancements in cricket umpiring. He had a simple way of dispensing cricket justice. No fuss, no bother.

But at least cricket, rugby and league, not to mention tennis, swimming and American football, make use of the electronic aids available to them.

They don't always get it right, but at least they're in the ball park.

The same cannot be said of soccer.

Now perhaps it will join the gang after this week's calamitous blunder in the English premier league match between Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur.

In the closing minutes, United's goalkeeper Roy Carroll, backpedalling towards his goal, dropped the ball which had been lobbed goalwards from a long way out.

It bounced over the line a good metre before Carroll scooped it out into the field of play.

The linesmen, trying to catch up, waved play on. The referee concurred.

On television replay the full scale of the clanger was captured. It was not even a close thing.

Carroll could have owned up, but that's not what good pros do. Play to the whistle even if he knows he pulled a swifty is the code.

Like the rugby player who knows he didn't correctly force a bouncing ball as he sees the referee awarding him the try; like the batsman who stands his ground after fat edge to the wicketkeeper somehow escapes the umpire's eye.

Soccer's governing body Fifa has long had an arrogance lacking in most other sports.

Maybe that comes with administering the planet's most popular sport, but it's not an excuse for the ostrich-like position on this.

Using a third official would have helped countless players avoid yellow or red cards and suspensions, prevented a host of incorrectly awarded penalties, would have avoided Diego Maradona's "Hand of God" goal against England and would certainly have enabled Tottenham to walk off 1-0 winners this week instead of sharing a point apiece with Manchester United.

But no, the referee's word is final is the dictum of Fifa's faceless men.

Now it seems even they have realised it's time to join the real world after Carroll's caper. It's way overdue.

This is being written by someone who long believed that even at the highest level, the umpire/referee was needed to keep the human element in charge of a games played by humans.

But now the price is so high in many sports.

What if Manchester United get into the Champions League by one point? What if Spurs miss out by one point? And more critically, what if they do a New Year's tumble down the table and are relegated by a point?

None of these scenarios is totally fanciful, and all would involve gaining or losing millions of dollars.

This is soccer's chance to catch up with the rest of the sporting world and right an old wrong. Time to wake up and look at the television official.