Football / World Cup USA '94: Fifa ban for referee

FIFA has decided that Kurt Roethlisberger will take no further part in the World Cup after the Swiss referee accepted yesterday that he should have awarded Belgium a penalty during their 3-2 defeat by Germany on Saturday.' He admitted that he made a mistake. He knows that's it for him,' Sepp Blatter, the Fifa general-secretary, said.

Blatter added that the Italian referee Pierluigi Pairetto also failed to meet the expected standards for his performance during Romania's 3-2 second-round defeat of Argentina on Sunday and would also be packing his bags early. 'They will not referee again in the tournament,' Blatter said.

The final list of 10 referees and 12 linesmen will be announced in Dallas tomorrow.

Belgian's football authorities had attacked Roethlisberger's decision not to award a penalty in the 70th minute of the second-round match in Chicago and called on Fifa to send him home and ban him from refereeing another international. Blatter said Fifa had received an official letter from the Belgian delegation but it was not a complaint.

He said it was 'written in a very respectful way by just putting into question Fifa's directions to referees. The letter is not a protest, it is just a question mark to the organisers. They did it in a gentlemanly spirit.'