Zurich: The FIFA Referees Committee has announced the match officials who will take charge of fixtures at this year’s FIFA U-17 World Cup, the first edition of the competition to feature 48 teams, which will be contested in Qatar from November 3 to 27.
A total of 81 match officials (27 referees and 54 assistant referees) from 35 FIFA Member Associations are set to oversee games at this historic event.
“This year’s FIFA U-17 World Cup is a landmark competition that will feature the stars of tomorrow and will equally offer talented match officials a thrilling opportunity to further develop their careers in a very competitive setting. The tournament will also give us another chance to test Football Video Support, thus enhancing our previous findings,” said the chairman of the FIFA Referees Committee, Pierluigi Collina.
“We have selected a group of match officials who will benefit from this new experience and have the potential to officiate at FIFA competitions in the future. This is in line with our objective of developing a new generation of highly qualified referees,” commented FIFA Director of Refereeing Massimo Busacca.
Football Video Support (FVS) was successfully trialled last year at the FIFA Women’s U-20 World Cup™ in Colombia and the FIFA Women’s U-17 World Cup in the Dominican Republic. This year, it has already been confirmed that it will be used at the FIFA U-20 World Cup in Chile and the FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup in Morocco in addition to the U-17 showpiece in Qatar.
FVS was developed following numerous requests from Member Associations for an alternative, cost-effective way of using technology to support match officials. Unlike the video assistant referee (VAR) system, FVS does not involve dedicated video match officials, and therefore not all match-changing incidents are checked. Instead, the onus falls on the respective head coaches, who are allowed to make a limited number of review requests per game when they feel that there has been a clear and obvious error in relation to a goal, a penalty decision, a direct-red-card incident or a case of mistaken identity. Players can also recommend that their coaches request a review.
