Regardless of how much fans raise their voices to the heavens about referees, bad officiating is just a fact of life in sports.

It is the nature of the beast, whether it is the National Basketball Association (NBA) and the "Jordan Rules" (which have now become "The LeBron Rules"), certain pitchers getting bigger strike zones in Major League Baseball (MLB) or National Football League (NFL) official Jeff Triplette confusing first-and-ten with third-and-short.

The 2014 FIFA World Cup is no different.

The list of referees still in Brazil who could potentially officiate the World Cup finale Sunday include Yuichi Nishimura of Japan and Carlos Velasco of Spain, who were responsible for two separate games but featured equally inexplicably calls that affected the nature of their respective games.

Nishimura was the official who handed a yellow card to Croatia's Dejan Lovren and awarded Brazil a controversial penalty in the 69th minute of the 2014 World Cup opener, after Brazil's Fred clearly flopped in the box. The bad call led to Brazil taking a 2-1 lead -- breaking the 1-1 tie -- with Brazil eventually winning the match 3-1. While Nishimura was demoted for the Honduras-Ecuador match, his services will be available for the championship game despite making clear mistakes in the game between Croatia-Brazil.

While the decision to leave Nishimura could be explained away as one mistake by an official that should not disqualify him from officiating the finals, someone in FIFA needs to explain how Velasco made the final cut for the pool of officials that may work Sunday's game.

Velasco's style of officiating in the Brazil-Colombia quarterfinals match can be best described as "Prison Yard Rules," with the Spaniard allowing both teams to use questionable physicality throughout the game, handing out 54 foul calls and only four yellow cards, in a game that spiraled so far out of control that it resulted in Brazil's superstar striker Neymar sustaining a back injury that left him with a fractured vertebra and knocked him out of the tournament.

While it would be easy to blame Brazil for the physical style of play they chose as an attack plan -- especially the way the Brazilian defense was manhandling James Rodriguez -- Velasco could have defused the situation easily if he had handed out a yellow card earlier in the game rather than eat the whistle until the 64th minute of the game when he finally handed out a yellow card.

Even a blind person could see the referee lost control of the game. And yet FIFA officials felt his job performance was serviceable enough to warrant an opportunity to referee the biggest soccer match of the year.

Yes, bad officiating is a part of the game. But at the end of the day, it is the international soccer governing body's responsibility to trot out the best officials to help determine who will be crowned the next World Cup champion. Such action leaves the average soccer fan scratching his or her head wondering, yet again: what is FIFA thinking?

Let's hope that officials don't end up ruining what has been an incredible and entertaining World Cup.

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