I’ve been a World Cup official – I promise you there is no favouritism

Conspiracy theories and accusations of bias cause serious harm to referees and lead to abuse. It can be difficult to cope.

Pierluigi Collina, who supervised all referees at the World Cup, had to defend his referees after Argentina beat Egypt 3-2 in the last 16.

Egypt had made strong accusations that referee Francois Letexier and his team were deliberately supporting Argentina. They were somehow instructed to go against their natural instincts.

Collina was right when he said the narrative could lead to threats against the referee’s family, and I’ve seen that before.

I’m very lucky that it didn’t happen to me personally, but I think that’s partly because I’m an assistant referee and not a referee.

We officiated the final between Spain and the Netherlands in 2010. It’s a proud day for all of us.

The management of the match, which Spain won 1-0, was extremely difficult. There were 14 yellow cards and Dutch defender Johnny Heitinga received a red card. Nigel de Jong could see red too.

There was a lot of criticism from Netherlands coach Bert van Marwijk. That’s what you have to strive for just to be able to make real decisions.

Sometimes it’s worse than that. Our English referees at this World Cup, Michael Oliver and Anthony Taylor, have received threats in previous years.

This is completely unacceptable and is compounded by unfounded whispers questioning the referee’s impartiality.

I support England, I love England and of course we lost to Argentina.

In my opinion, the referee was a little too lenient in the first 25 minutes. But in the end, the reason why we are not in the World Cup final is not the referee.

It’s really frustrating to hear conspiracy theories.

I can’t think of many other professions in the world where there is just one person with this much pressure on them.

The referee makes decisions worth millions of pounds and they have one second to decide.

Mistakes were made on the field, of course. However, these do not mean a conspiracy.

I think Germany’s goal against Ecuador in the group stage should have been disallowed due to a high foot. Ghana could have been awarded a penalty against England due to an ill-timed challenge from Ezri Konsa. And when they took a 1-0 lead against Scotland, Brazil scored a goal that should have been allowed but was disallowed.

103 matches have been played so far. That’s essentially 10 rounds of football in the Premier League, right? So of course there will be mistakes. It’s almost impossible to get through so many games without one.

Slovenian referee Slavko Vincic will referee the final match on Sunday.

This will be the pinnacle of his career. Just look at his emotional reaction when he read the name Collina in the referee briefing the other day.

Having been lucky enough to personally referee a World Cup final, I can assure you that Vincic won’t care one bit who wins.

The only thing he hopes for is what every referee hopes for; And that is to leave the field without making wrong decisions that will affect the result.

That will be all he cares about.

All of these conspiracy theories are fabricated.

I assure you that the only thing on your mind is to make the right decisions.

Darren Cann was speaking to BBC Sport’s Dale Johnson.