The World Cup.

Well there we are; England move slovenly into the last 16 of the World Cup (pun intended) and the USA streak to it and should be proud. I didn't watch the England match but watched USA v Algeria and it was very exciting; lots of goalmouth incidents all end to end stuff and after watching England's two boring games can you blame me?

The big problem with the football generally is the standard of play all around; where are players like Pele, Maradona even Nobby Styles you may ask – well they are all there. There are loads of players with the skills of the past greats – not Georgie Best, I'm afraid – but they have developed further skills; acting skills, diving skills, shirt pulling skills all the skills that the game of Association Football, soccer for short and known to the world as just plain football, just doesn't need.

It's almost impossible for a player to dribble the ball for any length of time without either getting tripped up or making a dive when a defender comes close; there they are rolling on the grass with agony and pain on their faces only to jump up two minutes later as soon as the free kick has been awarded or the defender has been given a yellow or even a red card.

And where do they get the referees from?

Every world cup as long as I can remember have used piss poor referees; we can see it as soon as the first game starts with bad off-side decisions, goals being disallowed, fouls being called that are not fouls and the general momentum and flow of the game being interrupted by referees and linesmen with no nous or experience.

The referees in the English football league are excellent with good reputations and in depth training. I know a lot of fans of the Premier League there might not agree with me but even they would have to agree that the difference between the refs in England and at the World Cup is vast.

I don't advocate bringing in replays on television cameras for disputed fouls and you can never reverse decisions after the game is over but something has to be done about it.

My opinion is not worth a plum nickel, I know, and most of the time I am like everybody else who has an opinion about football – I don't what I'm talking about. I accept this just as I accept that everybody from a child in the street to the drama critic of The Guardian is free to criticise me and my profession as an actor so let's have some free flowing football shall we.

Another thing I don't like about the TV coverage – and this seems to be general these days – is that I have a regular sized TV; I somehow don't want a wide screen TV dominating my life and I am satisfied with what I have so when it comes to watching football on TV I like to see close ups of the play. Not close ups of the players faces or even faces in the crowd, which they are also overdoing, but close ups of the players skills.

I know they have to take the wide shot so we can see the moves, and players running off the ball, but it seems they spend too much time on the wide shots so we can see the banner advertising surrounding the field of play. They are not seen at the ground, like they are seen on TV, as they are computer generated into different languages, but how can you see the intricate skills when the camera is so far away?

Have a look next time you watch a match and see the steadicam operators running up and down the touch lines – why doesn't the director use their shots more?

And who's going to win the World Cup? Who knows - and he's on first base!!