FIFA U17 WC Referee Discussions [Rs]

The U17WC in India during October is the last big check for WC candidates (the CWC counts, too, but that's small with few referees). Selected referees are below. Two things of note. As previously reported, there will be no VAR at the tournament--makes no sense to me whatsoever, but it's reality. Second, a few of the referees assigned are not WC candidates or, perhaps more precisely, were not WC candidates the last time the list was published or leaked publicly. I can't imagine many of these referees are actually in the running to get on-field spots in Russia, but you never know. I've indicated the non-WC candidates (again, at least on paper) below with a double asterisk and the candidates to be VARs with a single asterisk:

AFC
BIN JAHARI (SIN)*
SATO (JPN)
SHUKRALLA (BHR)

CAF
ABID CHAREF (ALG)
NAMPIANDRAZA (MAD)**
WEYESA (ETH)**

CONCACAF
MARRUFO (USA) [ROCKWELL/F.ANDERSON]*
MONTERO (CRC)
PITTI (PAN)

CONMEBOL
ARGOTE (VEN)
CACERES (PAR)
RICCI (BRA)
VARGAS (BOL)

OFC
ZITOUNI (TAH)**

UEFA
HATEGAN (ROU)
MADDEN (SCO)**
SIDIROPOULOS (GRE)
SOARES DIAS (POR)
TAYLOR (ENG)**
TURPIN (FRA)
VINCIC (SVN)**

 

A few thoughts...

1) The Marrufo trio's presence is good for American refereeing. With him being considered as a VAR, I'm not exactly sure how it works and what it means for the ARs (can either go to Russia as reserves?) but either way it's pretty cool to get a second US-led crew at a FIFA event in the same year. It will, however, take them out of the final weeks of the MLS regular season and likely the start of the playoffs.

2) Either FIFA already knows who it's sending to Russia from Africa or now it's just throwing darts.

3a) The UEFA crew is comparatively weak compared to what it sent to U20s and Confed, which isn't too surprising given the timing. Hategan and Turpin are probably real candidates for the World Cup. The others? Not so much.

3b) Taylor's inclusion here is fascinating. If Clattenburg is out (and all information we have indicates he is at this point), the two schools of thought are that either England is left without a WC referee for the first time since it joined FIFA or another candidate would emerge. It's probably the former, but if it is the latter I believe everyone thought the battle was between Atkinson (who is technically "too old" but maybe could get a waiver?) or Oliver, who is the perceived rising star. Taylor's name is a surprise.

4) Perhaps most interestingly, there are 7 support referees assigned to this tournament. All are female and all were referees at WWC 2015. Not sure what the motivation is for FIFA here, but it's clearly been done by design so I expect we might hear something about it before October.

 

Fourth officials.

 

I guess we're looking at it from different perspectives.

Oliver did the U17WC Final in 2015. Taylor has never previously been to a FIFA event, correct?

For me, if the 2017 U17WC is an assessment event for potential WC referees, it would make total sense to me that Oliver, with prior high-level FIFA experience, would be first in line from England. I guess you're looking at it from the perspective of Oliver having already been to this tournament, so it makes sense for Taylor to now get his turn. If this was the 2019 cycle, I would agree, because the off-year cycles are used to try new referees. But to the extent the 2017 tournaments are all supposed to be about the World Cup, I find it surprising--and that's without saying anything about their respective positions within UEFA.

 

Unless Collina has truly consolidated power to the point that only he is making decisions on UEFA referees, I'd argue history shows otherwise. Hauge, Mejuto Gonzalez and Larsen being the best examples of referees who were dominating UEFA knockout stages but got ignored by FIFA when the final decision came. You could even add Skomina and Kassai to the list, though those situations are a little murkier and had to do more with their ARs. I would even argue, though, that Hansson could have made the World Cup if his "hand of frog" goal was in a UCL QF, let's say, instead of a WCQ.

Since 2005, the FIFA tournaments (Confed, U17, U20 and CWC) are theoretically supposed to be where major assessments are made. That has obviously not held true with the U17s and, of course, qualifiers are going to play a huge role also. And it will all vary by confederation and be influenced by all levels of politics.

 

Will be interesting to see how Team Marrufo does with assignments going forward. On the one hand, they got two very good group stage assignments and I haven't heard of any issues. On the other, the advancement of the US could hurt them.

They obviously can't do the US QF. You would think they can't do the QF that determines who the US plays (Germany against, likely, Brazil). For the other two QFs, one will definitely have either Mexico or Iran, who they've already done. So that seems unlikely (though not impossible). That leaves the Mail/Iraq vs. Ghana/Niger match (and they've already done Iraq) as the most likely. Will be a few days until we see what happens. They could also be held for the semifinal stages, with the hopes (for them, of course) that the US doesn't advance.

 

Mali: Ghana - ABID CHAREF (ALG)
United States : England - TURPIN (FRA)
Spain : Iran - VARGAS (BOL)
Germany : Brazil - MARRUFO (USA)

First, unequivocally, congratulations to Team Marrufo. That's a marquee assignment, obviously. And any knockout match at a FIFA event is a huge win for US officials.

But given the US plays first and the winner of Germany v Brazil would be their opponent (should they beat England), it's a 50/50 shot this puts Marrufo in an awful spot and one that FIFA almost always avoids. So either there is some laziness going on with the assigning (Marrufo could have easily done Mali v. Ghana, for example--with at the youth level is probably a tougher match, to be honest) or Busacca really wanted to see the American crew on this match. Or it's some combination of that.

It's particularly an interesting assignment because confederational neutrality got dumped to put Turpin on the US-England match. If you're going to dump neutrality for that match, you could have easily put a UEFA referee on the Germany-Brazil one. I suppose that lends itself to the argument that FIFA just really wanted to see the US crew again here.