World Cup final: Howard Webb under fire but Johan Cruyff blames Dutch

Dutch disappointment at their third World Cup final defeat crystallised tonight in an embittered condemnation of the performance of the English official, Howard Webb.

The midfielder Arjen Robben said that the game had required "a world-class referee" while the Arsenal forward Robin van Persie was equally scathing about an official who had earlier sent off Holland's John Heitinga for a second bookable offence, but spared Andrés Iniesta the same punishment. "What was this man doing?" said Van Persie. "He made three big errors in extra time of a World Cup final. Believe me, this really hurts."

But there was also widespread condemnation of Holland's robust approach to the match, with the Dutch icon Johan Cruyff scathing in his assessment of his fellow countrymen, accusing them of playing "anti-football" and choosing an "ugly path". Webb handed out a record 14 yellow cards, two of which became red for the Holland centre-half Heitinga, with the Dutch claiming he should have dismissed Spain's Carles Puyol seven minutes from the end of normal time for a tug on Robben as he bore down on goal. They were just as insistent that Wesley Sneijder should have earned a corner 115 minutes in, with the buildup to Spain's only goal stemming from the goal-kick awarded instead.

Current and former refereeing colleagues raced to Webb's defence.

"He will never, ever, if he lives to be 100, referee a tougher match. I've never seen a referee put under so much pressure, I've never seen a team employ so much bully-boy tactics and the way they [Holland] harangued him at the end was absolutely disgraceful to be honest," said the former Premier League referee Dermot Gallagher.

The Fifa president, Sepp Blatter, placed the blame for the fractious final upon the players' indiscipline, though the Dutch remained unimpressed with the Yorkshireman's performance.

"When you sit in the dressing room after a game like that and all you're talking about is the referee, then that's very bad," said Robben. "For me, honestly, if you play in a World Cup final, you need a world-class referee. I don't know whether that was a world-class performance from the referee.

"The second foul, when I went through, was very clear. He had to send him off and give the free-kick. In the end there was no advantage. But there were some strange decisions. We'd tried to stop them defensively, and there were two aggressive teams who wanted to win. It's up to the referee to control the game. The main thing is we cannot criticise ourselves."

That overlooked the first-half challenges that might have seen Mark van Bommel and Nigel de Jong dismissed – there were five cautions in 13 minutes at one stage – with Xabi Alonso left with a suspected broken rib by the Manchester City midfielder's chest-high lunge 28 minutes in. "It was one of the worst tackles I have ever had," said Alonso. "I am in pain now – I have probably broken a rib. One of the most painful tackles in my life."

Cruyff was unforgiving in his assessment of the Dutch approach.

"Regrettably, sadly, they played very dirty. So much so that they should have been down to nine immediately, then they made two [such] ugly and hard tackles that even I felt the damage," he said.

"This ugly, vulgar, hard, hermetic, hardly eye-catching, hardly football style, yes it served the Dutch to unsettle Spain. If with this they got satisfaction, fine, but they ended up losing. They were playing anti-football."

Cruyff has also joined in with the criticism of Webb, claiming he should have been harder on the Dutch.

"A World Cup final deserves great refereeing and, above all, deserves a referee who dares to do everything it means to be a judge."

"It looked worse than it was," said De Jong of his contentious challenge on Alonso. "I didn't see the opponent coming in from the side and was just focused on the ball, catching him on his chest. But it's a final. Everyone was trying to survive.

"I've never had a problem with Mr Webb. It's always easy to blame the referee, but there were some curious moments. Everyone could see the last one. We had a corner five minutes from time – everyone could see it – and he gave the ball to Spain and, on the next attack, they scored. What can you do about that? That was the biggest decision."

The Fifa president offered his own assessment. "It was not exactly what we have expected or what I expected in terms of fair play in the final," said Blatter.

"It's not up to me to judge the performances of the officials, I can only say it was a very hard task that the referee trio had on the field of play. It was not easy, really not easy and they were really not helped in this task."

He refused to comment on Holland's criticism of Webb but said it was important to lose with grace.

"We always say football is the school of life, because it is based on discipline and respect. Football is a combat game, but a combat game in the spirit of fair play," he said. "You learn to win, that is easy, but you learn also to lose. When you learn to lose you should not forget the basics, which are discipline and respect."

"If you take the De Jong tackle out – I thought that was a red card – other than that I don't think he's got much to really look back in anger at himself, because he's gone out, he's been tested to the absolute limit."Blatter added that the standard of refereeing in the tournament would be discussed as part of the debriefing process. It will also be on the agenda at the next meeting of the Fifa referee's committee. But Fifa is believed to be happy with the overall standard of refereeing and will point to analysis showing that World Cup officials got 96% of their decisions right.

"You try everything because you know what is at stake," said Holland's Dirk Kuyt. "It was a World Cup final, after all. I think we had maybe two or three bad tackles in the team and that was it, but we had far more yellow cards than we deserved."