'No Regrets' - World Cup ref Webb

English referee Howard Webb has no regrets over his handling of Sunday's "extremely challenging" World Cup final between Spain and Holland.

The Yorkshireman arrived home today from South Africa with his assistants Darren Cann and Michael Mullarkey to a barrage of media interest in their performance in the final at Soccer City in Johannesburg.

Webb came in for criticism from both the Dutch and Spanish camps after he handed out 14 yellow cards and sent off Holland's Everton defender John Heitinga during Spain's fractious 1-0 win.

"Whatever the match, you always hope that the officials won't need to be heavily involved. However, we had to raise our profile in order to keep control," Webb said in a statement released through the Premier League.

"We don't feel that we had much choice except to manage the game in the way we did. We came away feeling satisfied that we'd done a tough job in difficult circumstances to the best of our abilities.

"It was an extremely challenging match to handle, but it would have been so for any referee. It is one of the toughest games we will ever be involved in and we feel that we worked hard to keep the focus on the football as much as possible."