By Tony Becca - On The Boundary

ONE OF the great things about sport is that it is a level playing field - an arena in which all men and women are equal regardless of race, colour or creed, status or influence, the size or the economy of one's country.

In other words, sport is the arena in which success depends on performance and nothing else - the arena in which victory goes to the best and not to the privileged or the favoured.

Unfortunately, however, there are those apparently who do not believe that it should be so - those who believe that sport, big time sport, should be the playground of big countries.

That is why in 1998 when Italy were struggling in the qualifying round, Cesar Maldini, then coach of Italy, questioned the possibility of a country like Jamaica making it to the finals of the World Cup and Italy failing to do so, and why on Monday the radio commentators on duty questioned the presence of Jamaica's Peter Prendergast as the referee for the Brazil/Belgium round of 16 match.

Early in the broadcast, one commentator asked another if he did not find it strange that a referee from a little country like Jamaica was in charge of a match of such importance, and in his answer, the other commentator talked about the number of poor decisions throughout the tournament and blamed it on the amount of assistant referees from little countries.

According to him, the mistakes were being made, not by referees but by their assistants on the lines.

In the case of Maldini, he probably has learnt his lesson. That may be why he accepted the job as coach of little Paraguay and hopefully the commentators on Monday, whoever they are, will also learn theirs before too long.

Chances are, however, they may not. They probably are too blinkered, too snobbish to learn, and that is why they were so pompous ­ why when there was a delay to take a free-kick, one commentator asked what was causing the delay and the other responded, "because Mr. Prendergast says the Brazilian wall is not 10 yards away".

In football, the big countries include France, Argentina, Italy, Portugal and Sweden, the little countries include Senegal, America, Japan, South Korea and Turkey, and if the two commentators were not too blinkered, if they were not snobs, they would have realised that like in so many other sports, things have changed in the world of football.

Things have changed so much that big France, beaten by little Senegal in their first finals, failed to get out of the first round, that big Argentina went home after the first round, that big Portugal were beaten by little America and by little South Korea and sent packing after the first round, that little Japan, South Korea and Turkey made it into the second round.

Also that Sweden lost to Senegal in the second round, that Senegal, the US, Turkey and South Korea, who knocked out Italy, are in the quarter-finals, and that one of them is certain to be in the semi-finals.

Times have changed, and the big countries, or the voices of the big countries, should accept that. The criteria to officiate in a World Cup match must be the ability to do so and nothing else. It is as simple as that.

The concern is that those two commentators are apparently not the only ones who believe that referees from small countries should not officiate "important" matches, or rather that it should only be Europeans who are good enough to be given such responsibility.

On Sunday, in the match between Spain and the Republic of Ireland, the referee was from Sweden, one of the television commentators remarked how good it was to see a European in charge, and when the referee blew for an offside which, according to the replay, was a good call, he commented on it in a manner to say that a South American referee would not have been good enough to make the call.

It was the same commentator who uttered these words later in the match after the same referee had blown the whistle for a foul and then looked to his assistant on the line before deciding who had committed the foul.

"The referee wasn't quite certain there," said the commentator. "He knew he had to give something but he did not know who to give it to. He had to get some help from the assistant on the far side."