Did Collina do his pre tournament press conference yet? Or is that usually paired with the opening match ref announcement?
So does Henry, but he's working for Fox as an analyst. Granted, he's Thierry Henry so maybe he can do whatever he wants where she might not have that leverage.
Footy Headlines has an article about the "authentic" referee kits and their purportedly higher quality than past kits: https://www.footyheadlines.com/7549...st-ever-authentic-climacool-referee-kits.html The article includes a shot of the six authentic colors, including the red and magenta side by side (why?!)
Seems to be the same images used in the FIFA publications above. Curious to see how they look in real life / on the TV. The green also seems a touch superfluous with the yellow and turquoise.
I've got a procedural question for the mandatory cooling breaks. How will the timing of these be determined? The obvious is at the first break in play after 22 minutes. What if the first break in play is a corner? Or a free kick with an obvious shooting chance? Or a penalty? I see that there is referee discretion but not that these questions have been addressed. This could be complicated by VAR with penalty decisions.
You'd think this is obvious, but prior to this tournament the guidance was 30' and 75'. I actually had to just check this because I was about to correct you. FIFA is now saying around the 22' and 67'. What's the official guidance? I don't have that. I do know at lower levels whenever I had to do it in the past, I told players we'd do it on the first goal kick or midfield throw-in that wasn't an obvious quick restart after 22'. An offside or similar defensive free kick was another good point to do it. If you've blown past 22' and are in the 25'-26' range, I think that opens up the situations where a referee would be more comfortable doing the break at a more dangerous restart. I mean, ultimately this has to be referee discretion. If you hit 20:30 and there's a serious injury that is clearly going to take some time, it would be the height of foolishness to wait 90 seconds, restart, and then do the break at the next stoppage. So we might get a few examples like that where we see which referees have that sort of common sense. And as you say, VAR could complicate things. Conversely, any substitution ready in the 65-70' range probably helps things as it provides a natural break.
I did a quick AI search to see if I could find any guidance. That was where I found 22 & 67 as the timings. Presumably with the expectation they will find a good slot for it within a minute. Referee's discretion is necessary as you cannot account for every scenario. There will be matches where significant stoppage time has built up during the first 20 minutes of a half. I do think any penalty kick should be taken before the break and I would argue in favour of shooting range free kicks and corners too. Although you could then have a series of corners. Making a penalty taker wait would be ridiculous and would also enable coaching of the goalkeeper. I'm sure there will be a controversial break decision at some point during the 104 matches.
It's funny. I used to think 30' and 75' was stupid because it was making the latter part of each half a third on paper, rather than half. Now, with the amount of stoppage time we're regularly seeing, I kind of think it makes sense. At minimum, I'd advocate for 25' and 70'. A second half is now inherently going to 93'; you add on the normal 3-4 minutes and you're at 97'. You have any sort of VAR stoppages and/or we're keeping time like in Qatar, and a match is going to 100' no matter what. Playing 22 minutes to take the break and then having 30+ minutes on the back end seems counterintuitive, but no one asked me!
There are reports floating around Twitter and elsewhere that Somali referee Omar Artan was denied entry into the US for the World Cup.
Embarrassing if true. How can you keep out a referee that qualified any more than you can keep out a team that qualified?
Gee, who would have thought that authoritarian countries like Qatar and Russia would be more open and hospitable to teams, officials, and fans than the good ol US of A? Obviously, this isn't good. I will give the US credit for one thing. They are not allowing FIFA to basically railroad them like they do every other country that has hosted the World Cup. You give us carte Blanche to do what we want. Basically, FIFA comes in and forces the host country to do whatever they want and FIFA takes all the profit. Here, the US is telling FIFA to go and pound sand which I kind of respect to an extent.
The U.S. signed up to host the tournament. Obviously, along with that comes the promise to let the people participating in the tournament into the country. There is nothing to celebrate about reneging on that promise. It is shameful and should disqualify us from ever hosting anything again
I think there are multiple aspects to this story that probably should be considered separately First is the difficulty that various sporting delegations have had in obtaining travel authorization so that they may participate in the World Cup. Although no one has asked for it, my opinion is that if a team qualifies or a referee is selected for the World Cup, they should be allowed to enter the host country for the duration of their participation in the event, regardless of the political relations between the host and the visitor. Obviously this is not the case so we have to deal with whatever else follows from that. Second is the specific travel authorization; the Swiss player Embolo had his ESTA travel authorization cancelled because of a recent criminal conviction that became final after his last travel to the USA. He was allowed to travel after obtaining a visa but this delayed him several days and we wouldn't have known about it without the Swiss media reporting on it. While I have no knowledge of why there was "visa trouble" with the referee prior to his attempted entry there are multiple reports that he attempted to enter on a diplomatic passport which is very much forbidden for non-diplomatic work or tourism (As an aside the only time I've seen someone turned away at a European border was someone trying to enter France for vacation on his diplomatic passport. The border guards were extremely loud and clear that this was not permitted "and you should have known this") Third, this isn't the only time and place where this has happened - Canada recently refused travel authorization for Iranian and Palestinian FA administrators for the 2026 FIFA Congress in Vancouver. This makes me suspect that there may be more than political petulance involved. Of course, I believe there is political petulance involved here and if a country agrees to host the event, they should allow the participants to participate but I do wonder if there is more to the story.
Have we heard if FIFA is still going with their aggressive amounts of stoppage or perhaps a trend back towards what UEFA is doing with all the law changes?
Of course there can always be more to the story. It is one thing if it is just one individual or team having an issue. It's one thing if Iran is the only one having difficulty. I don't like it and it is wrong, but you can explain it to an extent. The two countries are at war and the United States views the Iranian government as hostile so immigration will be difficult. But it's not just Iran. We have journalists, referees, and players from different countries having significant issues plus swaths of fans.Can you think of an Olympics or World Cup with this many immigration difficulties for the participants?
One thing is certain, the Summer Olympics people aren't paying one bit of attention to what is going on with this World Cup. That will become obvious in 2 years.
I am typically loath to engage in politics and almost no part of me wants to spend energy or time defending the actions of the current administration. That said, I think there are a few presumptions in here worth calling out or questioning. For any number of reasons? In what will likely be a common theme in this post, I'm not defending the action. At the same time, it's probably worth asking why Artan was denied entry when other individuals from the so-called "travel ban" countries have been allowed entry. Is this incompetence on the U.S. side? Because to me it doesn't make too much sense to allow the Iranian and Haitian teams but deny a single Somali referee. Did FIFA drop the ball? Something else? Similar thought here. I doubt anyone at the State Department was actively like "let's screw that one Somali referee when he arrives at immigration." I imagine something wasn't in order and he/FIFA couldn't fix it upon arrival. Now, you can be opposed to the underlying policy position here (I am). And you can criticize the bureaucracy for not being flexible enough to fix it in real time (I would). But I think the idea that there was some grand plan or attempted railroading around a Somali official who may not have even been slated to referee a game is a bridge too far. Does it? Not trying to be obtuse, but I imagine the obligations are a little more complicated than that. If there is negligence, incompetence or malice involved here, then yes, it's shameful. But "ever" is a long time and inherently undermines the idea that we live under a political system where we can make changes in the future that might result in a different disposition to the issue at hand and, one would hope, a different result in similar cases (stipulating, of course, there was or isn't any misconduct or mistakes on the Artan side of things). Just so my overall position is not mistaken, I *mostly* am with you here. The overall approach and disposition here is something I disagree with. It's wrong. With that said, I had a Russian-government issued/approved "Fan ID" in 2018, as did everyone attending that tournament. I imagine more than a few people were denied entry into Russia for that event. And those in the country were tracked in a way that individuals in the U.S. will not be. That doesn't make it right, of course. "You're not as bad as Russia" isn't the defense some seem to believe it is.
From a CBP spokesperson: “On June 6, a Somali national arrived at Miami International Airport from Istanbul International Airport. During processing, the traveler underwent additional inspection, a routine part of CBP's inspection process when officers need to verify information or determine admissibility. Following inspection, the traveler, a referee for the FIFA World Cup, was determined to be inadmissible due to vetting concerns and was denied entry. All travelers seeking entry into the United States, including athletes, coaches, and staff, are subject to CBP inspection and vetting. Admissibility determinations are made on a case-by-case basis using law enforcement, national security, and immigration information available at the time of inspection. CBP officers have the authority to question travelers, conduct inspections, and determine admissibility consistent with U.S. law.”
https://bsky.app/profile/svertelney.bsky.social/post/3mnsm65pypk2n FIFA confirms that the ref will not work the World Cup now
Gross. Bear in mind, he is going to miss out on a significant pay day now. For referees from these smaller countries, attending a World Cup is a huge windfall financially. From my understanding, they get a flat fee of almost $50K. Or at least they did, it might be even higher now.
I agree with your sentiment mostly, we don't live in a fair or just world and never have. Might makes right and money talks. Short of America droping a nuclear bomb on a western European capital, there is almost nothing that the United States can do to get themselves sanctioned from a sporting or economic perspective. The US is simply too big to fail for lack of a better word. I watched the French Open this weekend and a Russian player won the event and the national anthem and Russian flag were not allowed. Some fan tried to have the Russian flag waved in the stands and the gestapo French security came in and ordered them to put it away. It's been 5 years now since the war in Ukraine. Yet, in the past year alone the US has engaged in two separate bombing campaigns of another country twice, kidnapped the president of a sovereign state and not a peep or condemnation from the western world (i.e. Europe). But suddenly, not letting people in from some third world countries (mostly black and brown) is suddenly a bridge too far for everyone and consequences should arise. The US is untouchable and our government knows it and that is why they will continue to do whatever they want and bomb whoever they want without any consequences.