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I am intrigued by what happened after the clash between Zidane and Materazzi. But what happened immediately before it, and provoked it, has also been the subject of controversy ever since.

France were attacking. Both men were standing in the Italian penalty area with their backs to the goal. The Italian was immediately behind the Frenchman and, as happens more often than not in modern football, grabbed hold of him. He stretched his right arm around in front of Zidane and grabbed a handful of shirt at about—if you’ll pardon the expression—nipple height.

The attack broke down, the ball sailed forward over their heads, Materazzi let go of Zidane and both men strolled forward towards the halfway line. Words were exchanged. Both men agree about the beginning of the exchange. They concur that, when Materazzi had hold of Zidane, the Frenchman said, ‘If you want my shirt that badly, I shall give it to you after the match.’ What was said next has been disputed, and Materazzi won damages from a British newspaper which alleged, falsely, that he used a racist expression. So let’s accept Materazzi’s version, which appeared in his autobiography.

Materazzi wrote that he was upset by Zidane’s tone, which the Italian felt implied he was not worthy of receiving such an important shirt. ‘Because I was annoyed by his arrogance, I replied, “Preferisco la puttana di tua sorella” (I would rather have your whore of a sister).’

Nice. So Zidane turned, put his head down like a bull about to charge, and rammed Materazzi with it.

After the match, whenever the sending off was shown on television, you saw Zidane head-butt Materazzi and then referee Elizondo sprinting over and brandishing his red card. But that was an edited clip and not how it happened. One minute and thirty seconds passed between the violent conduct and the red card, and it is what happened during that minute and a half that intrigues me.

The referee did not see the incident. Neither did either of the assistants. That much was agreed afterwards and, anyway, if the ref had seen the head-butt, he would have stopped play at once and sent off Zidane much sooner. Similarly, if an assistant had seen it, he would have flagged straightaway, pressed the buzzer on his flag to alert the ref and have spoken into his lip microphone, saying something like, ‘Stop play! There’s been a head-butt.’ We know that didn’t happen.

Play went on briefly and only stopped when referee Elizondo awarded a free-kick to France near the halfway line for an entirely different, minor incident more than 30 metres away from the head-butt. At that point, Elizondo became aware of Materazzi flat out on the grass and ran over to him. The ref did not talk to Zidane at all, but called on the trainer to deal with the injury. Players milled around. Buffon, the Italian goalkeeper, came out of his area to join in and made a gesture to the nearest assistant referee, pointing at his own eye as if to say, ‘You must have seen that.’ Eventually Elizondo jogged over to that assistant and had a very, very brief conversation. Neither man said more than four or five words. After that, Elizondo sprinted back to Zidane and sent him off.

The next day FIFA released a statement. The crucial part said, ‘The incident was directly observed [i.e., without the use of a monitor] by Fourth Official Luis Medina Cantalejo from his position at the pitchside, who informed the referee and his assistants through the communications system.’

That authorized version of events was important to FIFA because they were, and are, stubbornly opposed to the use of video replays or similar technological help for referees. FIFA’s position is that it is a Pandora’s box which must never be opened. Their belief is that if you allow the use of technology to help decide whether the ball has crossed the goal-line for a goal, for instance, then the pressure would increase to use slow-motion replays to review penalty decisions, sendings off, offsides…and almost everything.

I have asked myself what I would have done. That is what referees usually think when something controversial happens in a football match. It’s part of the learning process, part of the self-appraisal that goes on all the time. Sometimes, as well, you have a special reason for putting yourself in the shoes of the ref. For instance, when I was sent home early from Euro 2000, I could not help calculating that, if I’d stayed and things had gone well, my last match would probably have been the semi-final between France and Portugal. So I watched with special interest when that match ended in incredible drama. There was a handball on the line in extra-time. It led to a sending off and a penalty—and the spot-kick won the match for France because the ‘golden goal’ rule applied at the time (the first goal scored in extra-time won the match). I sat and watched that all unfold and kept thinking, ‘Blimey! I might have had to give those critical decisions.’

And again on 9 July 2006, as I watched the World Cup Final on TV at my home in Tring, Hertfordshire, I had an additional reason for putting myself in the place of the ref—because, if I had not made my three yellow cards mistake, it might have been me refereeing the Final. So, yes, I thought what I would have done—what I should have done—if I had been the ref. And if I had been the referee, I hope I would have prevented the confrontation between Zidane and Materazzi.

As you run back following play, you are sometimes aware of men having a go at each other. You get a feel, a sense, of things like that from the body language, from the circumstances and from experience. Then, you ask yourself whether you can trust them not to let their squabble get out of hand. If the answer is, ‘No’, then you stop play, go over and say, ‘Lads, have you got a problem?’ You manage them and the situation, and it all blows over.

Referee Elizondo didn’t do any of that, so perhaps he saw nothing untoward as he ran away from the Italian area. So what about the assistant? Again, sitting at home, I put myself in his position. As the assistant, I would be very grateful to the referee. It was the ref who was selected for the World Cup, so I would know I owed my role on the big day to him and would be in his debt for the rest of my life. I would certainly want to repay him by assisting him to the very best of my ability and by trying to ensure that the match passed without any mistakes. So I would have been very disappointed with myself if I’d missed the head-butt.

The assistant’s job, as the ball was cleared, was to consider whether there was likely to be an offside if the ball was pumped back into the box. He needed to be in line with the second last defender (the last defender was the goalkeeper, don’t forget). And the assistant should have been looking along the line of players. Like the referee, he too should have had a sense, a feeling, when something was about to kick off. Yet, according to FIFA’s statement, it was only the Fourth Official who saw the head-butt.

So I put myself in the shoes—boots rather—of the Fourth Official, Luis Medina Cantalejo, with whom I’d spent some time during my period at that World Cup, and who I liked very much. We went on a couple of bike rides together, to break the monotony of life in ‘camp’ and to help maintain our fitness. He was a good thinker and an interesting talker. He was an upright, very correct man and very experienced. I would have been absolutely delighted if he had been my Fourth Official for any match, including the World Cup Final.

The Fourth Official does not have much to do. One of his duties is to tell the ref if the same player has been cautioned twice but not sent off (as if!). He might also notify the referee if there is a minor altercation between a couple of players. In those circumstances, he would not intervene immediately, but when there is a stoppage he’d say to the ref, ‘You might like to have a word with Zidane and Materazzi. They were at it a minute ago.’ That is good, supportive work from the Fourth Official, quietly helping the referee. But Zidane’s head-butt was much more serious than that and demanded a more vigorous response.

One of the three games my friend Luis had refereed in the 2006 World Cup was the match on 26 June between Italy and Australia—in which he sent off Materazzi. In the Final, if he had seen that same man floored by the world’s greatest player, do you suppose he would have sat around twiddling his thumbs? If it had been me, I would have been straight on my lip mike and said, ‘I say Horacio, there’s been violent conduct out of your view’—or words to that effect. Yet one minute and thirty seconds elapsed after the head-butt while the players were milling around the stricken Italian and Zidane. And, sitting at home in Tring, I thought, ‘Nobody saw it! Nobody can have seen it!’

Perhaps Luis had been doing some paperwork, or talking to the FIFA delegate—as you do—when the head-butt happened. Perhaps he saw something in his peripheral vision, looked up and saw Materazzi on the floor. In those circumstances, I would have expected my experience to have told me from Zidane’s posture that he was the culprit. I would have said to the assistant referee, ‘Did he just hit him?’ And I would have looked at the TV monitor near me for a replay, urgently.

I believe that if I had been the Fourth Official it would have been right to turn to look at the TV, in terms of natural justice and the spirit of football. Zidane and I had a good relationship and I loved refereeing matches in which he played. But he deserved to be sent off against Italy in the World Cup Final. If he had escaped punishment, the World Cup would have ended in farce, because everyone would have known that there had been a major injustice. And think of the implications if, after getting away with his crime, Zidane had scored the winning goal. Certainly, at the time, implications like that would have been going through the minds of every FIFA man and woman at the Final.

At home in Tring, I put myself in all the refereeing roles. I played out all the scenarios in my mind. In my versions, they all ended with the Fourth Official using the TV replay.