PRO has been updating their rosters for the new season, and I've come up with a summary of the changes. There are some names I think will end up listed as VARs, but I haven't confirmed that so I marked those with '?'s. 'R' indicates known retirements. Code: REFEREES IN: Joe DICKERSON OUT: Mark GEIGER (R) Jorge GONZALEZ (-->VAR?) Juan GUZMAN Edvin JURISEVIC (-->VAR?) Ricardo SALAZAR (-->VAR?) Sorin STOICA (-->VAR) Code: ASSISTANT REFEREES IN: Michael BARWEGEN Gjovalin BORI Chris ELLIOTT Cory RICHARDSON OUT: Joe FLETCHER (R) Kermit QUISENBERRY (R) Danny THORNBERRY Anthony VASOLI (R) Code: FOURTH OFFICIALS OUT: Baboucarr JALLOW Younes MARRAKCHI (-->VAR?) Code: VIDEO ASSISTANT REFEREES IN: Jorge GONZALEZ? Edvin JURISEVIC? Younes MARRAKCHI? Ricardo SALAZAR? Sorin STOICA Code: ASSISTANT VIDEO ASSISTANT REFEREES IN: Robert SCHAAP Tom SUPPLE
Granted most of the losses in the referee roster had already practically occurred in 2018. But the overall net change is in the wrong direction when you consider current workload, expansion, and likely upcoming retirements. If 2019 starts with the same sort of fitness issues 2018 had, it will be nearly untenable. That’s if 2018 starts with PRO referees at all, of course.
Just to put numbers behind it - Geiger and Stoica had 29 whistles in total (none of the other 4 refereed), and Dickerson had 8 (so has capacity to pick up ~15 of the "lost" whistles). Marrufo has more capacity since there is no World Cup this year (he had 16 - most of the other active referees had 20+), depending on other events, of course.
Also, FWIW (which may not be much), the PRO website has been updated with the changes you mention above for the Referees, ARs, and 4Os (I can't confirm if others were removed/moved - though I thought Gamble used to be on the 4O list?). The VAR list now includes Stoica but none of the others.
Looks like there could be a lot of trial spots for some young, up and coming referees. Check out these numbers from last year. Alex Chilowicz 1 Marcos DeOliveira 4 Timothy Ford 1 Guido Gonzalez 1 Victor Rivas 1 Ramy Touchan 2 Rubiel Vazquez 4 All of these officials are currently listed as either VAR or 4O. Also, I wonder why Stoica was dropped. He had 16 referee assignments last year. Does he have an injury?
I've been informed that a couple of the referees currently listed as OUT may well work their way back IN if they can pass fitness after injury. Additionally, I was given a few names that are apparently heading to the referee list, as well...