36 Referees, 69 Assistants And 24 VAR Officials Will Be On Duty In Qatar 2022 World Cup

JAKARTA - The FIFA Referee Committee announced the shortlist of selected match officials for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar on 19 May. 36 referees, 69 assistant referees and 24 video assistance referees (VAR) have been selected in close collaboration with the six confederations, based on their quality and performances in FIFA tournaments as well as in other international and domestic competitions in recent years.

"As always, the criterion we used was 'quality first' and the match officials selected represented the highest level of refereeing worldwide," said FIFA Referee Committee chairman Pierluigi Collina.

"The 2018 World Cup was very successful, partly due to the high standards of refereeing, and we will do our best to get better in these few months in Qatar."

The “Road to Qatar 2022” project has already started in 2019, with more than 50 people for each position considered as possible candidates and through intensive preparation. However, due to the COVID-19 pandemic, this preparation was by no means easy, as the activities there were suspended for a long time.

“The pandemic affected our activities, particularly in 2020 and early 2021. Fortunately, the World Cup is still quite far away, and we have enough time to prepare the candidates well. We announced this choice well in advance as we wanted to work even harder with everyone who has been appointed to the FIFA World Cup, monitoring them over the next few months. The message is clear: don't be complacent, keep working hard and prepare yourself very seriously for the World Cup," Collina said.

Meanwhile, Massimo Busacca, FIFA Refereeing Director, ensured that match officials would receive all the support required by FIFA, as their preparation is of the utmost importance.

“Thanks to the innovative tracking and support programme, all match officials can be supervised by FIFA refereeing instructors even more closely and intensively than in previous years. This is a very important factor, from which we expect considerable improvement and progress in light of the 2022 FIFA World Cup,” Busacca explained.

“In addition, there will be individual, tailor-made programs, specifically on health and fitness. Each match official will be closely monitored over the next few months with a final assessment on the technical, physical and medical aspects to be carried out shortly before the World Cup, so that they are in the best condition possible when the ball starts rolling in Qatar."

Selected match officials will participate in early summer in several seminars (Asunción, Madrid and Doha), review and analyze video clips of real match situations, and take part in practical training sessions with players, which will be filmed to allow participants to receive live feedback. back from the instructors.

"The main focus of preparation remains protecting players and the image of the game, consistency, uniformity, reading the game from a technical and tactical perspective and understanding the different mentalities of players and teams," added Busacca. "We cannot eliminate all errors, but we will do everything we can to reduce them."

The VAR system was implemented for the first time at the 2018 World Cup Russia and four years later, a team of 24 video match officials (VMO) will operate in Qatar, ready to provide technological support to his teammates on the pitch, if needed. Due to the very limited number of FIFA member associations implementing the VAR system at the time, the VMOs for Russia 2018 were mostly selected from Europe and South America. Currently, the VAR system is used in all major competitions around the world and VMOs from Asia, Africa and Central and North America will also participate in the Qatar World Cup.

For the first time in the history of the FIFA World Cup, the FIFA Referee Committee also appointed three female referees and three female assistant referees.

“We are very pleased that with Stéphanie 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, we were able to contact the women's match up officials for the first time. in the history of the FIFA World Cup. This ends a long process that began several years ago with the placement of female referees in FIFA's men's junior and senior tournaments. In this way, we clearly emphasize that it is quality that matters to us and not gender. I hope that in the future, the selection of elite women's match officials for important men's competitions will be considered as something normal and no longer sensational. They deserve to be in the FIFA World Cup because they continue to perform at a very high level, and that's an important factor for us," concluded FIFA Referee Committee chairman Pierluigi Collina.