The head of FIFA's Referees Committee denied accusations of poor officiating at the World Cup finals before yesterday's kick-offs, saying the standard had never been higher.

There has been widespread condemnation in the global sporting media about the abundance of yellow cards and the record number of red cards shown in these finals.

Both FIFA president Sepp Blatter and German great Franz Beckenbauer, the president of the German World Cup organising committee, have also criticised the standard of refereeing this week.

High profile controversies involving English referee Graham Poll and Russian referee Valentin Ivanov have thrust match officials into the spotlight, but Angel Maria Villar, the Spanish chairman of the referees panel denied any serious problems.

"Ninety per cent of the refereeing has been at a very high level at this World Cup, a far cry from Korea and Japan in 2002. We have far less serious injuries and far more goals scored," he said.

"Most of the matches have been played fairly in a great sporting spirit. We want a clean World Cup and we are achieving that.

"It is the World Cup of the assistant referee. More goals are being scored in situations where before the flag would have gone up and the goal disallowed.

"Of course, there have been errors - but we are all human beings and we have the right to make mistakes."

He backed both Poll, who showed a yellow card to the same player three times before sending him off, and Ivanov, who sent off a record four players in a second round match which Portugal defeated the Netherlands 1-0.

Although both referees have now been released from their World Cup duties he praised both as "outstanding referees."

"Mr Poll is a great ref and a great man," he said, "who has admitted to a mistake. Mr Valentin is another great referee who showed the cards as he saw fit."

Introducing new laws

He said that ideas such as introducing sin bins for cautioned players, or looking again at whether a red card should be awarded after only two yellows were not matters for the referees to consider but for FIFA and the International Football Association Board, the game's ultimate law-making body, to examine if they saw fit.

Villar is the president of the Spanish FA, a FIFA vice-president and executive committee member and a former Spanish international player.

He was once red carded for punching Johan Cruyff in the face during a match in Spain.