Incompetent or corrupt? Flip a coin

Did you hear the one about the poor guy in South Africa who was beaten to death by his wife and two grown children because he wanted to watch the World Cup instead of a religious program?

Yeah. Sorry. There is no punch line.

It happened Sunday in a small village in the northeastern part of the country that is hosting soccer’s greatest event.

David Makoeya, 61, wanted to watch Germany-Australia. His family wanted to watch a gospel show. They fought over the remote control until David switched the channels manually.

Then his wife and darling kids bashed his head against a wall over and over.

After which I presume they all prayed.

Some real beauties, these three lunatics. At least make such a response over something important, like a late-night “Seinfeld” rerun.

The killing made news in South Africa, but not on the scale you might think. Not to, say, the level of a story about a corrupt referee.

Family spats that end in bloodshed are one thing in the world of soccer; crooked officials are another.

It’s why Koman Coulibaly should feel fortunate his call late in the United States-Slovenia match Friday negatively affected the American side. Had it come against a country that actually holds soccer in a passionate and possessive manner, he might have never made it to the locker room alive.

Jim Joyce. Ed Hochuli. Joey Crawford. Officials blow calls here and we spend the next 24 hours berating them in newspapers and on radio and TV. Comedians have new material. YouTube gets millions of more hits.

Then we go back to debating where LeBron James might next play.

Imagine if Coulibaly had cost England a victory. Those nutty hooligans would have gone all Makoeya family on him.

As it is, the U.S. rallied for a 2-2 draw against the smallest of 32 nations in the World Cup, meaning the Americans still have an opportunity to advance out of Group C. If not, they will never forget Coulibaly’s 90-plus minutes of incompetency.

It would help the Americans to quit falling behind early in matches, but once they had erased a 2-0 halftime deficit, it appeared the game winner had found net in the 85th minute when Maurice Edu scored off a terrific free kick from Landon Donovan.

Coulibaly called a foul and the goal was disallowed. It was the last and most critical of ridiculous decisions by the man from Mali.

“We asked the ref many times what it was or who it was on, and he wouldn’t or couldn’t explain it,” Donovan told reporters afterward. “I don’t know what to think of the call because I didn’t see any foul, just a normal free kick and a goal.

“I’m a little gutted, to be honest. I don’t know how they stole that last goal from us.”

Coulibaly was bad all day long. His nickname is “Sleepy Eyes,” and you had to wonder at times if he was even awake. He issued a yellow card to Robbie Findley for a hand ball, which would have made sense had the ball not struck Findley in the face and then grazed his shoulder. It was Findley’s second yellow of the tournament. He’s now out against Algeria.

There were other eyebrow-raising calls by Coulibaly, but none compared to the foul called on Edu’s goal.

Fact: The penalty area in soccer’s highest level is at times more physical than an NFL offensive line on fourth-and-goal from the 1. There is more grabbing and hugging and pushing than you’ll find in a heavy metal mosh pit.

FIFA is trying to cut down on the amount of fouling. Good luck with that.

There wasn’t one foul on the play. There were several by both teams. Edu, ironically, wasn’t involved in any. Michael Bradley of the U.S. was mugged the entire time.

Still, you can’t make that call at that moment on that stage and not expect many to think bias, if not full-blown corruption. Not in soccer.

Was anyone knocked over? Did the foul (wherever it came from) directly affect Edu or the Slovenian keeper?

No. No.

You let it go. You play on.

Officiating soccer is difficult. Doing so in a World Cup is especially so. When scoring is limited, every call is magnified.

But too much is riding on these matches to have one decided by a first-time World Cup referee who doesn’t know when to swallow the whistle, who spends an entire match making bizarre calls and missing (or simply not acknowledging) obvious ones.

I suppose things could be worse for the Americans.

They could all be going home to David Makoeya’s family.

Las Vegas Review-Journal sports columnist Ed Graney can be reached at egraney@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-4618.