Calling the shots
In May, the FIFA Referees Committee announced the list of various match officials who will take charge of the games in Qatar. This includes 36 referees, 69 assistant referees and 24 video match officials.
No one exerts as much control over a football game yet remains as inconspicuous as a referee. The leniency and objectiveness of the one with the whistle can often determine the course of a football game. Their influence hasn’t diminished much despite technology encroaching into their field of dominance.
In May, the FIFA Referees Committee announced the list of various match officials who will take charge of the games in Qatar.
This includes 36 referees, 69 assistant referees and 24 video match officials (VMOS), who have been selected based on their quality and performance in various national and club-level competitions.
“As always, the criteria we have used is ‘quality first’ and the selected match officials represent the highest level of refereeing worldwide,” said the chairman of the FIFA Referees Committee, Pierluigi Collina.
Collina, who is one of the most recognised and respected referees in the history of the game, also spoke about how good refereeing played a major role in the success of the 2018 World Cup.
In the 36-referee list, there are some familiar names due to their global popularity. From the Premier League, referees Anthony Taylor and Michael Oliver will be present in Qatar while Frenchman Clement Turpin, who officiated the Champions League 2022 final between Real Madrid and Liverpool will also be present.
Major absentees
Argentine Nestor Pitana, who refereed the 2018 World Cup final between France and Croatia, misses out after the Argentine Football Association (AFA) chose not to include Pitana on their 2022 FIFA List nominations.
Felix Brych, the winner of the IFFHS Award of The World’s Best Referee of the Decade (2011-2020), will not be heading to the World Cup after he announced his international retirement in 2021. Bjorn Kuipers from the Netherlands, who officiated the EURO 2020 finals, is also not going to Qatar after retiring last year.
A historical World Cup
A highlight of the announced list of match officials was the presence of women referees, a first in the history of the men’s football World Cup.
This includes Stephanie Frappart from France, Salima Mukansanga from Rwanda and Yoshimi Yamashita from Japan, as well as assistant referees Neuza Back from Brazil, Karen Díaz Medina from Mexico and Kathryn Nesbitt from the USA.
Frappart, who is the first woman referee to officiate a Ligue 1 and a Champions League game, officiated the World Cup qualifier between the Netherlands and Latvia last year, becoming the first woman to do so.
Yashamita, on the other hand, broke new ground by becoming the first woman to officiate in both the AFC Champions League and the J-league and was also part of the 2019 Women’s World Cup and the 2020 Olympics.
Earlier this year Mukasanga, who has
officiated in the Olympics and Women’s World Cup, became the first woman to handle a men’s African Cup of Nations game when she took charge of the Zimbabwe vs Guinea encounter.
“I would hope that in the future, the selection of elite women’s match officials for important men’s competitions will be perceived as something normal and no longer as sensational. They deserve to be at the FIFA World Cup because they constantly perform at a really high level, and that’s the important factor for us," Collina stated.
In tune with FIFA’S trend of periodic innovation in in-game decision-making — goal-line technology in 2014 and VAR in 2018 — it was announced earlier this year that semi-automated offside technology will be introduced for this World Cup.
This innovation will enable faster and sharper off-side calls which lessen the burden on the referees, while also ensuring the game flows seamlessly.