Derdepoort: World Cup match officials have been a big success despite making mistakes in some games, Fifa’s head of refereeing said on Saturday.

Jose-Marcia Garcia-Aranda said analysis of the first 62 matches showed that referees got more than 96 per cent of their decisions right.

“It is a big success. We have to say it is not an opinion (but) facts,” the Spanish official said at a news briefing.

Fifa accepted that errors that were made, though in “only a few” matches. “We are not hiding our mistakes or the mistakes of the referees on the field of play,” Garcia-Aranda said in a robust defence of Fifa’s refereeing program.

World Cup final referee Howard Webb agreed that mistakes had been made but said they were largely isolated.

“There is no point us sitting here as match officials and saying everything is absolutely perfect,” said the 38-year-old Englishman referee, who is one of the few professional referees among the 29 Fifa selected for World Cup duty.

“But it’s also right to point out that the vast majority of decisions have been very sound and very correct.”

Referees were widely criticised after a series of mistakes in the first half of the tournament. In the group stages, the United States were denied a likely winning goal late in their game against Slovenia, then a Brazil goal against Ivory Coast was allowed to stand despite two apparent handballs by Luis Fabiano in the lead-up play.

Brazil’s Kaka was harshly sent off later in the same match. The pressure was stepped up after game-changing errors by assistant referees helped eliminate England and Mexico in the second round.

Fifa will revisit proposals to introduce goalline technology in response to England being denied a clear goal which would have levelled their match against Germany.