In a new extract from his book The Impossible Job, former Danish referee Kim Milton Nielsen recalls sending off David Beckham during England's 1998 World Cup last-16 match against Argentina, one of football's most infamous dismissals. Nielsen was officiating his first major tournament when Beckham was shown a red card for kicking out at Diego Simeone after the Argentinian fouled him, a decision that came with a full half still to play and remains inseparable from his career decades later.

Nielsen says he drew on a lesson from 1991, when as a young referee he sent off Barcelona's Guillermo Amor at the Camp Nou despite instincts urging leniency, teaching him that the same rules must apply regardless of a player's status. He insists he never doubted the Beckham decision despite the pressure of the occasion, saying he would have "destroyed" himself as a referee had he backed down for fear of headlines. Nielsen, who began refereeing in Copenhagen in 1976 and retired in 2006 after becoming the first official to reach 50 Champions League appearances, says he is still recognised today, even by those born after 1998, as "the man who sent off David Beckham".