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FIFA Discards Rule No. 1

Every child who plays soccer learns that the referee's decision is final. Right or wrong, when the arbiter makes a call, it stands. Protest is not only futile, it is forbidden.

But that was yesterday, all our yesterdays.

As of Tuesday, and with 60 nations engaging in World Cup qualification Wednesday, that primary rule is compromised. FIFA, the global governing body of soccer, has just annulled a World Cup playoff game because the referee made a technical error.

The match between Uzbekistan and Bahrain will be replayed, presumably with a different referee.

Seems fair? You be the judge.

Uzbekistan was leading the game in Tashkent on Saturday, the first leg of a home and away Asian Confederation playoff to determine which of those two countries would meet a Central American side for a place at the World Cup finals next summer.

The Uzbeks led by 1-0 when they were awarded a penalty kick in the 38th minute. The penalty was converted by Server Djeparov, but the referee, Toshimitsu Yoshida of Japan, disallowed it, because an Uzbek player had encroached into the penalty area.

So far, so good. However, Yoshida then made an elementary error. The laws of the game required him to order the penalty kick retaken; he instead handed the ball to Bahrain for a free kick.

After the match finished 1-0, Uzbekistan lodged a complaint, seeking to maximize its advantage going into the return leg in Bahrain. Uzbekistan asked FIFA to overrule the result and award it a 3-0 victory by default.

Instead, the Bureau of the 2006 FIFA World Cup Organizing Committee, deciding Monday evening that the referee had "committed a technical error," ordered the match replayed in its entirety.

It set new dates for the playoff. The first leg will be replayed in Tashkent on Oct. 8. The second leg, scheduled for Wednesday in Manama, will now be played there Oct. 12.

The members of the bureau did not include FIFA's president, Sepp Blatter. They are Swedish, Argentine, South Korean and Swiss (FIFA's general secretary, Urs Linsi).

Neither team has qualified for a World Cup before, and the stakes are high. So, too, is the sense of injustice.

"Obviously it is not fair to us to replay the whole game after winning 1-0 and then being robbed of a successful penalty," said Sanjar Rizayev, spokesman for the Uzbekistan federation. "We ask for the first leg to be replayed starting in the 38th minute, with the penalty retaken."

Bahrain does not agree. It is happy with the overrule, and no doubt happy that the delay until October gives its top striker, Ala'a Hubail, the chance to recover from an injury that kept him out of the original contest.

Yoshida says he must remain silent because, as of Tuesday, no official had informed him of the FIFA judgment.

It will not end here, because the FIFA Congress meets in Morocco on Sept. 10, and Uzbekistan intends to lobby intensely.

"Fair play" is FIFA's golden rule. Uzbekistanis are crying foul.

They may be on a loser. The oil-rich Middle East states are a rising power in FIFA committees; witness the fact that the deputy chairman of the FIFA disciplinary committee is Sheik Salman bin Ibrahim Al Khalifa, and his countryman Jassim Ahmed Mohammed sits on the FIFA referees' committee.

But the error of one referee, and the committee room abrogation of the first rule we all had to obey, leave a black hole on the acceptance of who is in charge on the pitch.

Sadly, this saga overshadows the return to the Beautiful Game by Brazil. Its stunning 5-0 victory Sunday over Chile in Brasília included a second goal of hypnotic brilliance.

The ball flowed from one goalmouth to the other. Juan, the center back, began it in his own area, then Robinho, and next Adriano, Kaka and Ronaldo all flowed like liquid gold with the ball. Finally, Robinho glided in to finilalalala off. A goal beyond imagination, and beyond intervention of any referee or any committee.

In fact, with Ronaldinho, the world player of the year, missing through suspension, the debate in Brazil right now is just who of the Magic Quintet of forwards does Coach Carlos Alberto Parreira leave out?

He should worry. The rest of the world is envious of such striking power, such overabundance.

The distribution of talent in the world is, like wealth, neither fair nor equal. Ask the Germans and the South Africans.

They are the hosts for the next two World Cups in 2006 and 2010, and they meet Wednesday in a friendly international in Bremen. It is a meeting underpinned by desperation.

Germany needs match practice because it does not have to qualify for the finals next summer on home soil. South Africa needs to get away from its home continent where, last weekend, it slid out of contention for 2006.

Among other things, what the Germans and South Africans lack is goal power. With such a surplus in Brazil, and with so many Brazilians scoring in European club sides, might the hosts in waiting not seek, as countries from Africa to the Middle East manage to do, to naturalize a Brazilian or two?

Effectively, Germany is ahead of the game. Kevin Kuranyi is its prime goal scorer, and he was born and bred in Rio de Janeiro.

His German adaptation is perfectly proper. Kuranyi's grandfather was Hungarian, his mother Panamanian, his father German. He could play for any of four nations. At 15 he made a choice to play for VfB Stuttgart, and now, aged 23, he belongs to Schalke.

A tall, flowing figure in the Bundesliga, he stumbles over "easy" chances but fires the improvised goals that make him distinctively Germany's Latin hope. And all within FIFA's nationality laws.