No, but once you become a FIFA referee in one country, I believe you can not transfer your FIFA status to another country.
But it's almost impossible for those referees that were doing first division games in their country to move to another country and start doing first division games there. There is a FIFA from Greece who just moved to California and he can't get a sniff at MLS.
I have a high school game with him today, I believe he transferred as an 8. I'm not sure what that says about the USSF but it doesn't seem very smart to take a FIFA referee and drop him all the way down to an 8.
Past practice has been to bring in foreign FIFAs as 5s, at least it has been when the transitions have been smooth. If he really came in as an 8, there might be something else going on.
There might be, I'm not positive he's an 8 though I'll ask him. Weird since in my experience California could stand to lose a lot of Nationals who aren't really up to the task.
You mean like Welsh referees doing games in England? Long time Cal South SYRA Heroes Baghoumian (sorry if I've misspelled) was a FIFA Referee from Armenia who lived in southern California and still had his FIFA badge in the early '90s.
He ran line for me at Dallas Cup last year. USSF transferred him as a 5. I don't think he even told Dallas Cup he was a FIFA all of 3 months prior. They gave him a typical first time ref to Dallas Cup schedule for a state referee - one u13 whistle and all ARs. He was so bad on the line it was hilarious. Horrible mechanics, but I always knew what he meant. He actually had to call the only goal of the game on a quick in and out. Never popped the flag, just took off up the line pointing the flag up towards half. Looked hilarious, but I still knew what he meant Super nice guy. Wonder if he is at least a 4 yet.
I know this post was made back in January, well before the lockout, but when this thread just got bumped and I saw this I had a good chuckle. How much things have changed in the last three months!
Video and article from the seminar Geiger has been attending in Switzerland: http://www.fifa.com/worldcup/news/y=2014/m=4/news=referees-continue-world-cup-preparations.html There is another video available on the FIFA site from the earlier session. This is probably a good time to remind or tell everyone that there will once again be a World Cup Referee New & Analysis subforum for this summer's tournament. All news, analysis and discussions of referees and referee performances will go in that forum, which, yes, will be more frequented by fans (so prepare yourself for it and get used to it). If incidents in the WC prompt discussions about the Laws or can be used to talk about referee instruction and development, then threads like that will be in this forum. In the effort to keep all World Cup-related material in the World Cup fora, this will be moderately pretty heavily, so consider this the first (of several) warnings. The WC subforum is created, but we'll make an official announcement here once it's open for business.
White one is definitely a Fox 40. Black one is probably the same but hard to tell. Certainly not a Tornado though.
The World Cup Referee forum is up and running. Won't likely be a ton of discussion there for a few weeks, but this will be the first of several posts, pointing people to its location (you might want to bookmark it): https://www.bigsoccer.com/community/forums/world-cup-2014-refereeing.1612/
Reminder... ALL World Cup referee discussions belong in that forum. This serves as the announcement that that is the case. World Cup match threads in this forum will simply be closed--not moved. If a technical LOTG issue arises from a WC incident, that will be the only slight exception to this rule. But the consequent thread in this forum will be about the Laws generally--not the match specifically. Again, ALL World Cup referee discussions belong in the above forum.
Which I'm glad to see, because somebody told me a couple weekends ago that I should get a different whistle because only amateurs use Fox 40's. If it's good enough for Mark Geiger, it's good enough for me
Seriously? I know referees of all pedigrees all the way up to National 4 and have seen on TV referees all the way up to FIFA using the Fox40 Classic. It's by far the most used whistle at all levels, and is even the most common at the very top with the possible exception of the Valkeen which is picking up in popularity. If someone tells you you're an amateur because you use a Fox 40, tell them they're an idiot.
Something louder, I think. Which I find ridiculous. Unless you're reffing in Azteca stadium during a hurricane, a fox 40 classic is plenty loud, and when you're out doing U-19 amateurs on a Sunday, a louder whistle serves no purpose other than additional ear damage.
I actually know someone who did this (almost) It was a torrential downpour. The game had to be abandoned and the referees' locker room had 2 ft of water in it! PH
I agree. I only get WTF? looks from players when I use the Sonic Blast -- my Fox 40 Classic is equal to any task. You just gotta know how to use it.
Ravenish Kumar has been replaced by Mark Rule in O'Leary's trio due to injury. Norbert Huata of Tahiti will now be the reserve AR.