According to various online sources, FIFA sent yesterday (5 December 2019) to the national FAs the names confirmed for the FIFA List 2020. Any new names in the USA and/or Canada?
And Uranga and Brown on the AR list. Lauziere onto the CSA whistle list. This all presumes FIFA confirmation, of course. These were the nominated names in August. FIFA is almost always pro forma.
Don't know why he lost his, but once a person is taken off before normal retirement, it is very rare for them to come back on. Not impossible, it has happened a few times around the world, but very infrequent. It seems one chance is usually all you get! PH
Atwell's initial appointment was probably premature for him. He seems to be a lot better referee these days. In the US, there were a one or two examples back in the 1960s, but may have been due to admin or technical errors. More recently Raul Dominguez was off for one year in 1994, but he was moving residence between states at the time. PH
Elleray pushed them both since a long, long time. Andrew Madley and David Coote join the FIFA list from England.
New FIFA referee from Italy is Fabio Maresca - he is a huge talent who could be the next del Cerro Grande in UEFA. If you get the chance to watch one of Maresca's games, I would highly recommend to - he is one of the most natural referees that I've ever seen!
Andrew taking his brother's spot! Not many two-FIFA referee families (same generation, not father/son). PH
And he has only handled five PL games... I think he has some potential for international level, though. Walter López Castellanos's brothers German and Bryan are FIFA AR and referee respectively. They all officiated (in)famous Panama - Costa Rica game, where the ghost goal was given by... the only non-relation, AR2 Marco Tulio Diaz
What about husband/wife FIFA referees? Claudia Umpierrez is one example - her husband Gabriel Popovits is a FIFA assistant referee.
What about here in the US? Anderson brothers - FIFA ARs Mariscal siblings - 2 brothers and 1 sister all FIFA ARs married couple - Unkels, both FIFA referees
And I think there were two brothers on the FIFA list in Guatemala several years ago. All true, but it is still not many in the overall scheme of things. PH
Nothing new . I wasn't talking about couples anyway. Just examples like the Madley bros. People don't read the original post properly. I didn't say it was unique, just rare. (And the Bibi and Webb hook-up doesn't count for obvious reasons, plus there was a similar situation in Switzerland a few years ago, and probably some others we never heard about!) PH
Honest question regarding Madley - how unusual is it for a country like England (or any of the other European countries with at least a decent top flight such as Germany, France, or the Netherlands) to give a white badge to someone with so few top-flight domestic games? What does that say about England's current state of young referee development? While I could see a country like Slovenia or the US nominating a referee with relatively few domestic games, it seems like a big stretch for England to give someone with five PL centers a FIFA designation. So coming back to the US - would US Soccer and PRO ever look at granting a young and very talented referee a FIFA nomination with so few MLS assignments? I know we've discussed how US Soccer has rarely - if ever - used its full allotment of FIFA designations. If they had a promising young referee (I'm talking like 27-28 years old, similar to Barton), would they consider nominating that referee for a FIFA even to give them a chance at some smaller-nation friendlies or youth tournaments?
Don't have any answer here, but will point out that Andrew is 2 years older than Bobby! So he has been around a relatively long time. IIRC it has been done. Kevin Stott was 27/28 when he got on the FIFA list. But before MLS started! Don't know if could happen again, but don't see why not for the right person. PH
I don’t have specific data, but I doubt it’s that unusual. There’s a misconception that a FIFA badge correlates with your top domestic referees. That was once true but in the modern world it’s not really the case. There are only so many slots overall and then, within UEFA, only so many slots for each tier. National associations need turnover and constant development and that means making sure people are on the list early enough to exploit opportunities. It took Taylor and Oliver a little time (1-2 seasons) to really step up and fill the openings left by Atkinson and Clattenburg. England doesn’t want to be in that position again. Other countries don’t do it either. In Germany, I believe Welz just left the list early to give a younger referee a chance. In Italy, the AIA refused to let Rocchi stay on another year so that someone else could start getting international experience. Is 5 games low? Yes. But given what you want to get out of a FIFA referee it doesn’t matter. It’s not like he’s going to start getting the major domestic assignments over Atkinson, Dean or Marriner because his badge color changes. If Madley develops, great. If not, onto someone else. Where England has erred is just being too top heavy and old domestically. Guys like Moss and East and even Dowd and Dean have closed opportunities to games (deservedly in some cases) for younger referees. So England just didn’t have the bodies to fill its FIFA slots—literally no one was eligible. Now they are. Again, this may feel counter intuitive but it’s the opposite. Slovenia needs to make its allotment count. It has to be sure. Because if the goal is to develop a WC referee it is getting one shot. So it needs its best on the list. You can’t put someone on early who will struggle or be unimpressive. At least, you want to avoid it. England is getting its spot and, in fact, getting three elite referees automatically if it can fill all three spots. So England needs diversity in age and experience in its list. It does not want and should not have 10 veteran referees aged 38-45. It needs referees in their late 20s and early 30s. Things are too opaque and confusing to offer an honest answer about what is going on now. USSF controls the nominations, not PRO. And USSF is bad at this. If it wasn’t, Penso would still be on the list. So it’s apples to oranges when comparing to England (and CONCACAF to UEFA). But, historically, let’s not forget Marrufo was in his 20s. Geiger was 33 or so. Villarreal was 28, I think. And Saghafi is 29. So it’s happened and will continue to happen.
I will also point out that in England, the EPL referees are full timers. It's their job and they're going to remain in the top flight as long as they can. That means that turnover is lower. In Slovenia, I doubt they are full time. That means that the chances are pretty good that non-soccer, non-injury reasons (like work or emigration) may get in the way of a top first division official continuing on for a long career on the field. So you put your markers on the best guy you've got who doesn't appear to have any career ending stuff likely to happen in his life, especially if UEFA is giving him Champions League/Europa League games with the whistle. England for 2019 had six male referees on the FIFA list. The United States had five. A subcommittee of the USSF Referee Committee makes the determination of who will be nominated, which then gets blessed by the full committee and the USSF NBOD, before forwarding to FIFA.