I should have sent off de Jong in World Cup final: Webb

LONDON - Referee Howard Webb admitted Thursday that he should have shown Dutch midfielder Nigel de Jong a straight red card for his foul on Xabi Alonso in July’s World Cup football final defeat to Spain.

De Jong only received a yellow card for his flying high tackle on Alonso but Englishman Webb now says he would have brandished red had he had a better view of the incident.

“Having seen it again from my armchair, I would red-card him,” Webb told the Guardian newspaper.

“The trouble in the actual game was that I had a poor view of that particular incident. I was looking through the back of Alonso and though I could see the foot was high, I could not be certain of the extent of the contact.

“It wasn’t that I didn’t want to send anyone off because it was a World Cup final, though I was mindful of the fact that the game was the pinnacle of the players’ careers as well as of mine. I just wasn’t prepared to take a guess 25 minutes into the game.”

The 39-year-old official dished out a record 14 yellow cards in the final in Soccer City, Johannesburg, including two to Holland’s John Heitinga, who was sent off in Spain’s 1-0 extra-time win.