Weird World

From the Guardian:

Manchester United have submitted a claim of mistaken identity to the Football Association after Fábio da Silva was booked by Chris Foy against Barnsley in the Carling Cup.

Instead the offender – for a challenge on Jamal Campbell-Ryce – was his twin brother, Rafael.

My understanding of the rules is that a referee's on-pitch decision, even if demonstrably wrong, stands - except in those exceptional cases when it really shouldn't.

But then, sometimes it seems public offices aren't run much more professionally. Seht Roberts writes about something I've been wondering about on and off:

An example of “too big to fail” never mentioned in discussions of the financial crisis are big public-works projects: In spite of staggering cost overruns, which occur in practically every project, they are never stopped. The latest example is London’s Crossrail, a new train crossing London. Original estimated cost: 3 billion pounds. Current estimated cost: 16 billion pounds. And construction hasn’t started!

I heard a talk about why this happens. I think the speaker said there was no motivation to be honest. The companies that underbid dishonestly pay no penalty; the politicians that approve their dishonest bids risk nothing.

Same problem in Germany.

There appears to be a very simple and obvious solution to this problem: Pay the company responsible the agreed-on-beforehand sum X to do Y. How much it costs them to reach the well-defined goal is immaterial for the payment. Surely there is a very good reason why this isn't done? Surely?