JOHANNESBURG, South Africa - As FIFA remained silent Monday on clear mistakes made by World Cup match officials, the debate raging worldwide about introducing video technology in soccer only grew louder.
The sport's governing body did not send any officials with responsibility for referees to its daily briefing despite widespread furor over Sunday's decisions that contributed to the elimination of England and Mexico.
FIFA president Sepp Blatter has offered no public comment -- not even on his much publicized Twitter feed -- since attending both teams' games, where he witnessed the errors of judgment by two referees and their assistants.
A series of FIFA-led rejections of video technology means match officials are denied access to images seen within seconds by hundreds of millions of television viewers, and most stadium spectators via replays broadcast on giant screens.
"Let it be as it is and let's leave football with errors," Blatter said in 2008 when experiments with goal-line technology and video replay were halted by FIFA's rules panel, the International Football Association Board (IFAB).
Opposition to that determined stand was voiced Monday by experienced World Cup coach Guus Hiddink, who has led two different teams to the semifinals.
"Sepp Blatter should announce tomorrow that video replay will be implemented or he needs to resign," Hiddink said.
The organization which represents players around the world also demanded that referees be given the most modern tools to do their job.
"We can do it, the football world wants it and yet it is still being thwarted. That is unacceptable," said FIFPro spokesman Tijs Tummers.
The chorus of disapproval threatened to overshadow one of the most eagerly anticipated days of the finals, featuring knockout matches with marquee attractions Brazil and the Netherlands.
However, FIFA found a defender in Brazil coach Dunga, on the grounds that all publicity is good for the game.
"I would leave it the way it is," Dunga told reporters. "If there is no controversy in football, you wouldn't be there and I wouldn't be here."
The debate is undoubtedly unwelcome to FIFA which hoped it had dealt with the technology issue in March, when IFAB declined to restart technology experiments.
FIFA had no desire to revive the discussion Monday, midway through its showpiece event.
Under hostile questioning at a briefing which attracted double the usual number of reporters, spokesman Nicolas Maingot said he was not competent to discuss decisions by referees or the rules panel.
"We obviously will not open any debate," Maingot said. "This is obviously not the place for this."
Events on the field in Bloemfontein and Johannesburg on Sunday ensured the discussion has spun out of FIFA's control.
Television replays quickly showed that England was denied a goal against Germany when Frank Lampard's shot bounced down from the crossbar and over the goal line.
Uruguayan referee Jorge Larrionda waved away the 38th-minute effort, which would have levelled the game at 2-2. Germany went on to win 4-1.
Four hours later, Argentina's first goal in a 3-1 win against Mexico was scored by Carlos Tevez from an offside position but was allowed by Italian referee Roberto Rosetti after he consulted his assistant. Mexico players protested to the match officials after seeing replays on a stadium giant screen which showed the infringement.
FIFPro's Tummers said Rosetti had no choice but to wrongly allow the goal because he could not be seen to rely on video replays.
"You could see the doubt in his eyes. Technology does not undermine the authority of referees, it only helps them," Tummers said.
That view was shared by the inventor of Hawkeye, a system used in tennis to judge line calls but spurned by FIFA in 2008.
"Referees want goal-line technology. It would be there to help them, not to replace them," Paul Hawkins told the British agency PA on Monday.
Hawkins believes his system, which uses a number of cameras positioned around the stadium to calculate the ball's position, could have transmitted a message to Larrionda, the Germany-England referee, within a half-second.
When video technology was debated -- and rejected -- again this year, Blatter said it was too expensive to impose worldwide on FIFA's 208 members, would break up the flow of games, undermine referees' authority and was not always conclusive.
"No matter which technology is applied, at the end of the day a decision will have to be taken by a human being," Blatter said. "Other sports regularly change the laws of the game to react to the new technology. We don't do it and this makes also the fascination and the popularity of football."
World Cup referees are scheduled to meet the media Tuesday at their training base near Pretoria, but are forbidden to discuss their own or colleagues' match decisions.
At a previous media session last Monday, referees who made disputed calls at this World Cup did not attend.
