Qatar’s Taleb Al Marri will make his debut appearance at this summer’s FIFA World Cup in Russia taking up his position as an assistant referee in the 32-team tournament.
World governing body FIFA today released the final list of referees and assistant referees who will be seen in action at the Jun 14-Jul 15, 2018 event.
Al Marri will join nine other assistant referees representing the Asian Football Confederation (AFC).
“I am proud to be the first referee to represent Qatar in a World Cup,” Al Marri tweeted today.
Iran, Uzbekistan and Saudi Arabia each will have two representatives in the list of 10 assistant referees. Other AFC assistant referees are from the Bahrain, the UAE and Japan.
Al Marri featured as an assistant referee in the matches of the 2016 FIFA World Club Cup held in Osaka in December that year.
Fifa also announced a full list of referees who will feature in the 2018 World Cup. Six referees are from Asia whereas a total of 10 will represent UEFA, the European football governing body.
In total, the FIFA Referees Committee has selected 36 referees and 63 assistant referees, representing 46 different countries, for the 2018 FIFA World Cup, details showed today.
“The choice of the final group of match officials selected to officiate at the 2018 FIFA World Cup Russia was based on each referee’s skills and personality, as well as his level of understanding of football and ability to read both the game and the various tactics employed by teams,” Fifa said on its website today.
“Over the last three years, preparatory seminars have taken place for referees and assistant referees focusing on fair play, protecting players and the image of the game, as well as consistency and uniformity.
“The selected FIFA World Cup match officials will attend another dedicated seminar for two weeks in the second half of April at the technical centre of the Italian Football Association in Coverciano, Italy. The officials will be divided into two groups, which will also include video assistant referee (VAR) candidates,” Fifa added while announcing the list of referees.
Source: The Peninsula
