Yesterday (1st), the "2022 Qatar World Cup Referee Candidate Seminar" organized by FIFA officially opened in Doha, and Chinese referee Maning and assistant referee Shi Xiang attended the meeting together. This also means that after 20 years, the dream of Chinese football referees once again appearing on the World Cup field is further approaching.
<h1 class="pgc-h-decimal" data-index="01" > countdown to referee selection for the World Cup</h1>
In preparation for the 2023 Fifa Women's World Cup and the 2022 Fifacious World Cup in Qatar, FIFA held the "Women's World Cup Candidate Referee and VAR Video Referee Seminar" in Doha from October 23 to 29, which was attended by 20 referees and 5 video referees from four continents including Asia, Africa, Central and North America, the Caribbean and Europe. However, Chinese female referees were affected by the epidemic and missed the seminar, while a video referee from Australia, Iran, Japan, Thailand and Vietnam represented Asia in the five-day seminar.
The 2022 Qatar World Cup Potential Referees Seminar opened in Doha on the 1st
Subsequently, FIFA began organizing the "Seminar for the FIFA World Cup Qatar 2022 Prospective Referees" from November 1, which will end on November 5. A total of 52 referees from four continents, including Asia, Africa, Oceania, Central and North America and the Caribbean, attended the seminar, including 26 referees and 26 assistant referees. According to the basic principles of FIFA, originally, the meeting should be attended by a "referee team", that is, one referee plus two assistant referees, but due to the impact of the epidemic, FIFA chose a referee plus an assistant referee. Therefore, Cao Yi, another assistant referee who often follows Ma Ning to law enforcement work, did not go to Doha to attend the seminar, but if Ma Ning can finally be selected for the World Cup law enforcement list, Cao Yi will definitely accompany and participate in law enforcement work. Fu Ming, another referee who had been stranded in West Asia, was a video assistant referee, so the seminar did not invite the video assistant referee to participate, so Fu Ming did not attend the meeting.
In charge of the seminar were the Chairman of the FIFA Referee Committee, the Italian Corina, the Vice-President of the Commission, the Qatari Hani, the Executive Director of the Referee Department of the FIFA Secretariat, the Swiss Bussaka and others. At the opening ceremony of the seminar, Hani, as the host representative, welcomed the referees present, thanked FIFA for its trust in Qatar, and arranged the referee seminar in Qatar. Bussaka stressed the importance of the workshop, saying that FIFA has begun the final selection of referees and law enforcement officers for the 2022 World Cup, stressing that referees participating in the seminar will have the opportunity to finally enforce the World Cup.
< h1 class="pgc-h-decimal" data-index="02" > choose five out of eight, and Manin faces fierce competition</h1>
It is understood that according to the list of 26 referees participating in this meeting released by FIFA, there are a total of 8 groups of referees from AFC. In addition to China's Manin and Shi Xiang, they include: Bith (Assistant Referee Shishetinen) of Australia, Nawaf Shuklala of Bahrain (Assistant Referee Mohammed Salman), Iran's Fahani (Assistant Referee Mohammed Mansuri), Ryuji Sato of Japan (Assistant Referee Jun Mihara), Mark Hadmayeh of Jordan (Assistant Referee Ahmed Nadi), Jassim of Qatar (Assistant Referee Taleb Mali), Uae's Mohammed Hassan (Assistant Referee Mohammed Ahmed Al-Mali) of the United Arab Emirates Yussef Hamady).
Manin became one of eight asian referees for the World Cup
In these eight groups of referees, Iran's Fahani, Bahrain's Nawaf, The Uae's Hassan, Japan's Ryuji Sato and other four referees are the main referees who have enforced the 2018 World Cup in Russia, while Qatar's Jassim participated in the last World Cup as an assistant video referee; the other Uzbek referee Who participated in the law enforcement work of the last World Cup, Ilmatov, has hung up the whistle two years ago and has now become the first vice president of the Uzbek Football Association.
In addition to the four referees who participated in the last World Cup, people like Beth from Australia and Mark Hademeh from Jordan both participated in the men's football enforcement work at this year's Tokyo Olympics. In contrast, Manin is in a relatively disadvantaged competitive situation, because in addition to participating in the law enforcement of the World Youth Championships, he has not participated in the law enforcement experience of higher-level World Championships. In the test match of the PRE-WORLD CUP in Doha in December, Iran's Fahani and Japan's Takaharu Sato were selected as law enforcement referees.
To some extent, for the Chinese referee Maning and others, the competition is still quite fierce. Because from the current situation, the final Asian referee group is likely to remain in about five groups. Of course, from the overall perspective of Chinese football, the hope of Chinese referees to enter the 2022 World Cup is certainly greater than that of the Chinese men's national football team, and the probability of "8 out of 5" is of course much higher than that of the men's national soccer team "12 to choose 4.5". Moreover, Chinese football believes that it will also fully support the Chinese referee team to strive to appear on the World Cup again.
<h1 class="pgc-h-decimal" data-index="03" > Chinese referees to the Jordan Law Enforcement Women's Football Tournament</h1>
After the seminar held in Doha, it is understood that the Chinese referee team will also go to Jordan to participate in the women's football club championship hosted by the AFC. The tournament is a FIFA-approved and AFC-sponsored test event called the 2021 AFC Pilot Women's Club Championship. This is the second tournament hosted by the AFC, mainly by women's football clubs in the West Asia region, following the inaugural tournament in South Korea in 2019 with the participation of the three East Asian women's football champions teams and the Australian women's football champions, and will be contested by four women's football club teams from Jordan, Iran, Uzbekistan and India, which will start on November 7 and end on November 13.
Chinese referees Fu Ming and Cao Yi participate in the U23 Asian Cup qualifiers
In addition to Maning and Shi Xiang travelling to Doha for a FIFA-sponsored seminar, another referee, Fu Ming, together with assistant referee Cao Yi, traveled to the UAE on October 24-30 to participate in the enforcement of the fifth group of the 5th U23 Asian Cup qualifiers, and will travel to Jordan after completing the law enforcement work in the UAE. Because the VAR video technology will be used in this women's football club event, Fu Ming will participate in law enforcement work as a video assistant referee.
Author: Ma Dexing