FIFA.com Conveniently Ignores Referee Koman Coulibaly Mistake

Visit FIFA’s official website to watch the highlights of the World Cup game between Slovenia and the United States today, and you’ll see that in the two minute highlight video, FIFA shows exactly zero seconds of the controversial free kick incident when Maurice Edu scored but the goal was disallowed by referee Koman Coulibaly.

FIFA’s decision to exclude the incident from the highlight video is appalling. FIFA included several highlights from the game but the biggest talking point was conveniently ignored. If you’re FIFA, why draw more attention to the horrible decision by Coulibaly? But, at the same time, by excluding the incident from their video clip, it only draws more attention to the incident and makes it look like FIFA is trying to pretend it never happened.

In the 432-word match summary of the Slovenia against United States game on the FIFA.com website, only one sentence is focused on the controversial decision by Coulibaly. It reads “The Americans might even have won the game only for referee Koman Coulibaly to rule out a goal from Maurice Edu, who volleyed home Donovan’s free-kick from the right.” The way it’s written, it sounds like no big deal. Shucks, if only Coulibaly hadn’t just ruled the goal out. That’s incredulous.

And in the other report of the game on the FIFA website, the 492 word article also only contains one sentence about the incident, which reads “And had Edu not had a goal ruled out four minutes from time, Bradley’s adjustments would have paid even more handsome dividends.” So much for a thorough analysis of the incident.

One last point. If you view the photo slideshow of the Slovenia against United States on the FIFA.com website, you’ll notice there is not one image of the controversial free kick incident. This is absolutely ridiculous.