Ref Who Can't Count Retires (From FIFA, That Is)

FIFA will now have one less horrible referee for people to make fun of. Graham Poll, who gained notoriety for giving Croatian footballer Josip Simunic three yellow cards when a player can only receive two before being sent off, has decided to retire from international officiating. The move is undoubtedly unnecessary as it is not likely that FIFA would have asked Poll for another go-around, but he is obviously operating under the employee creed that it is always better to quit than it is to be fired.

But for those who still want to see a referee who does not realize the writing down on a booking for a card is not just for ceremonial purposes, have no fear because Poll will not be retiring from the English Premier League.

When asked to elaborate further on his reasons for retiring, Poll showed he is not only bad at simple arithmetic, but he is also unable to form a coherent thought.

"Certainly what happened a week ago is something I deeply regret. Inexcusably, I made an error in law, and most mistakes, most discussion, most controversy, surrounds opinion, and they are things we can always debate."

If, as is the case for myself, your Graham Poll dictionary and decoder ring set have not yet arrived in the mail, then you don't know what the hell that is supposed to mean, either.

"But what I did was an error in law, and for that there can be no dispute. It wasn't caused by a FIFA directive or because I referee differently than what I do in the Premier League," Poll said.

Oh, so FIFA didn't tell you to give three yellow cards to a single player in one game? I'm glad you cleared that up for me, Graham.

Keep your ear to the ground because given Poll's track record, there is no telling exactly how many times he will retire from FIFA in the coming days. One can only hope he wrote down what he did this time.

UPDATE: Maybe Graham didn't retire before he was fired after all.