Who Are The Referees For The World Cup?
The World Cup in Russia will see the best players in the world come together to all try and achieve the same goal, World Cup glory. With 32 teams battling it out over 64 matches, the players themselves will obviously have a huge say, but one man will have an effect in every game and that is the referee.
So, at World Soccer we have provided you with a full list of all the referees officiating games for the tournament.
36 individuals have been selected to referee games, and they come from a variety of confederations.
The names are drawn from the six football confederations under FIFA and much like the allotted amount of qualified teams from each confederation, the distribution is not equal. European governing body UEFA have 10 representatives however, controversially, there are no English representatives with the possible boycott being one factor at play.
The AFC (Asian Football Confederation), CAF (Confederation of African Football), CONCACAF (Confederation of North, Central American, and Caribbean Association Football), and CONMEBOL (South American Football Confederation) all have six representatives.
Finally the OFC (Oceania Football Confederation) have two referees going to the World Cup.
Right now, it is not known which referees will officiate each game. The final referee briefing is on the 4th of June so we are expecting each matches referee to be announced then.
Below is the full list of referees: (note Fahad Al-Mirdasi will not appear at the tournament after match fixing scandals).
| Referee | Confederation | Country |
|---|---|---|
| Fahad Al-Mirdasi | AFC | Saudi Arabia |
| Alireza Faghani | AFC | Iran |
| Ravshan Irmatov | AFC | Uzbekistan |
| Mohammed Abdulla Mohamed | AFC | United Arab Emirates |
| Ryuji Sato | AFC | Japan |
| Nawaf Abdulla Shukralla | AFC | Bahrain |
| Medhi Abid Sharef | CAF | Algeria |
| Malang Diedhiou | CAF | Senegal |
| Bakary Papa Gassama | CAF | Gambia |
| Ghead Grisha | CAF | Egypt |
| Janny Sigazwe | CAF | Zambia |
| Bamlak Tessema Wayesa | CAF | Ethiopa |
| Joel Aguilar | CONCACAF | El Salvador |
| Mark W. Geiger | CONCACAF | USA |
| Jair Marrufo | CONCACAF | USA |
| Ricardo Montero | CONCACAF | Costa Rica |
| John Pitti | CONCACAF | Panama |
| Cesar Arturo Ramos Palazuelos | CONCACAF | Mexico |
| Julio Bascunan | CONMEBOL | Chile |
| Enrique Caceres | CONMEBOL | Paraguay |
| Andres Cunha | CONMEBOL | Uruguay |
| Nestor Pitana | CONMEBOL | Argentina |
| Sandro Ricci | CONMEBOL | Brazil |
| Wilmar Roldan | CONMEBOL | Colombia |
| Matthew Conger | OFC | New Zealand |
| Norbert Hauata | OFC | Tahiti |
| Felix Brych | UEFA | Germany |
| Cuneyt Cakir | UEFA | Turkey |
| Sergey Karasev | UEFA | Russia |
| Bjorn Kuipers | UEFA | Netherlands |
| Szymon Marciniak | UEFA | Poland |
| Antonio Miguel Mateu Lahoz | UEFA | Spain |
| Milorad Mazic | UEFA | Serbia |
| Gianluca Rocchi | UEFA | Italy |
| Damir Skomina | UEFA | Slovenia |
| Clement Turpin | UEFA | France |
There are also 63 assistant referees for the tournament who will be used in a number of different roles. They could be an assistant, fourth official or will be using the VAR system that has been introduced for the 2018 tournament.
At World Soccer we will update you with all the news related to the World Cup on our website. Make sure you know about the Groups, Friendlies, Dates, Fixtures, Stadiums, TV Schedule, Qualified Teams by clicking on the highlighted links.
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