The man in the middle - Referee Admiration/Angst/Appointments thread

2014 World Cup referees:

AFC: Ravshan Irmatov (Uzbekistan), Yuichi Nishimura (Japan), Nawaf Shukralla (Bahrain), Ben Williams (Australia).

CAF: Noumandiez Doue (Ivory Coast), Bakary Gassama (Gambia), Djamel Haimoudi (Algeria).

CONCACAF: Joel Aguilar (El Salvador), Mark Geiger (United States), Marco Rodriguez Moreno (Mexico).

CONMEBOL: Enrique Osses (Chile), Nestor Pitana (Argentina), Wilmar Roldan (Colombia), Sandro Ricci (Brazil), Carlos Vera Rodriguez (Ecuador).

Oceania: Peter O'Leary (New Zealand).

UEFA: Felix Brych (Germany), Cuneyt Cakir (Turkey), Jonas Eriksson (Sweden), Bjorn Kuipers (Netherlands), Milorad Mazic (Serbia), Pedro Proenca (Portugal), Nicola Rizzoli (Italy), Carlos Velasco Carballo (Spain), Howard Webb (England).

Appointments for the first 8 games are out. No sign of O'Leary or Williams yet, but Tahiti's Norbert Hauata is 4th Official for Mexico vs Cameroon tomorrow morning.

I can't wait until the whole world gets to see how much Ben Williams can f*ck over a team.

Some country is going to lose their shit after Ben Williams refs their game.

Lol that there's a TAB logo beside the refereeing thread. I know match fixing is widespread now but I didn't realise it had reached the mainstream!

It's beside all of the threads in the world cup subforum, which is presented by TAB.

Yeah I know, still thought it was ironic though.

Surely Ben Willliams has pretty short odds for fucking up a game.

Apparently he's paying 1/3. For every correct decision, expect 3 fuck ups.

At least O'Leary will do a good job. I wish he did more Nix games.

he doesn't tend to do a very good job of nix games though. Overcompensates to not seem biased, which is natural. 

Peter O'Leary appointed as 4th Official for France vs Honduras, alongside Jan Hindrick Hintz as Reserve AR.

How awesome was that goal line tech decision by the way? The technology worked perfectly and the goal was correctly given, which would have never happened without the tech.

He added on 3 minutes instead of typo-ing 13, so I think it's safe to say he had a good day at the office.

Refs have been pretty good since the first couple of games,

Great advantage played for Switerland's last goal.

Peter O'Leary did a good job standing with the France and Honduras managers with his hand on each when they were engaged in a heated debate over the goal awarded by the goal line tech to ensure the discussion remained under control. He's a tall bloke! This photo's all over the world's media, including the Guardian:

Honduras coach Luis Suarez and France coach Didier Deschamps argue about the second goal. Photograph: Andrew Couldridge/Action Images

All World Cup match official appointments are posted here direct from FIFA:

http://footballrefereeing.blogspot.de/search/label...

Appointments currently complete up to match 20.

Our man from Oceania, Norbert Hauata from Tahiti, was fourth official for USA v Ghana this morning:

GROUP G, Match 14
16 June 2014, 00:00 CET
Estadio das Dunas, Natal
GHANA - UNITED STATES
Referee: Jonas ERIKSSON (SWE)
Assistant Referee 1: Mathias KLASENIUS (SWE)
Assistant Referee 2: Daniel WÄRNMARK (SWE)
Fourth Official: Norbert HAUATA (TAH)
Standby Assistant Referee: Aden Marwa RANGE (KEN)

The word from referee followers who follow appointments much closer than me is that, based on FIFA's track record on appointments, O'Leary is likely to get a dead rubber game on the final day of a group.

Could well be right - giving so many Fourth Official gigs to Tahitian Hauata suggests they might be keeping O'Leary for bigger things like reffing a game.

Although FIFA gave NZ officials more responsibility earlier on last World Cup when they let NZ ref Mike Hester take charge of the first game in the group for South Korea v Greece last World Cup with O'Leary and Hintz running the lines.

Hauata Fourth Official again Friday: 

GROUP C, Match 22
19 June 2014, 00:00 CET
Estádio das Dunas, Natal
JAPAN - GREECE
Referee: Joel AGUILAR (SLV)
Assistant Referee 1: William TORRES MEJIA (SLV)
Assistant Referee 2: Juan Francisco ZUMBA (SLV)
Fourth Official: Norbert HAUATA (TAH)
Standby Assistant Referee: Marwa RANGE (KEN)

I see they have finally rolled out Howard Webb for the Colombia Greece game which is game 23?. You can sense they are trying to keep him away from the controversy in a possible finals appearance. I don't think there is any doubt he is the best referee there.

When you consider O'Leary is the better referee by far compared to Hauata, if he was only going to do 4ths, they would have picked O'Leary to do them first rather than the other guy. His turn will come. He is also the only pure neutral there as well so there is a chance he is kept on for that reason (but then they are hardly likely to use him) and I note FIFA broke their own neutrality rules putting the Spaniard Carlos Velasco on the England Uruguay game. Usually they use complete neutrals so this will be interesting.

What is a "complete neutral"?

Not from the same confederation. They talk about not using a referee from the same confederation as one of the teams unless both teams are from the same confederation.

Decent reffing in the Brazil Mexico game this morning I thought. (although Tiago Silva probably should have got a red card near the end).

At least the ref didn't fall for Marcelo's bullshit.

Admittedly Hauata was only ever on the 4th Official Panel, whereas O'Leary was guaranteed a game as part of the main panel.

Hearing that O'Leary might be given a game that is being played this weekend.

Of the 6 games, 3 would be possible. I'd say Italy v Costa Rica, Swiss v France and Germany v Ghana are NOs.

Honduras vs Ecuador, Argentina v Iran and Nigeria v Bosnia would be the more likely. I doubt they would give him Argentina being a potential semi team and something going wrong (like sending off Messi and its a mistake). I reckon one of the other 2.

Man in the Middle endorses this analysis.

I heard ben Williams had the hondorus game

Fixed

Honduras vs France? Nah. Unless you mean their next game. In that case ...

Yup, Ben Williams has Honduras vs Ecuador. TAB playing $3.75 for a red card in the game, which are amazing odds.

For a lot of people (me included) there is very serious doubt that he is the best referee there.

<p>Peter O'Leary officially announced to referee Nigeria vs Bosnia and Herzegovina. Mark Rule and Jan Hendrik Hintz are the two assistant referees. Good to have some Kiwi representation at the World Cup!</p>

It is and let's hope he has a good game and doesn't embarrass himself or us.

If he performs half as well as he thinks he does , he'll be average...

er.... so if he performs like he thinks he does he will be good?

Think you've got your metaphors wrong. Ironic considering he is over there participating and we all back here being keyboard warriors.

I have no doubt that he can perform at this level. His performances at FIFA age group tournaments have been more than satisfactory and he definitely deserves the opportunity. Pleased that he got a decent game too, plenty riding on it, especially for the Bosnians.

Top bit of reffing in the Swiss v Ecuador game when the advantage played led to the swiss second goal.

A lot more advantages being played now than in the first few games. 

Webby wouldn't have seen that as an outcome just been too keen to get the cards out.

Not a single person has any faith in him. 200 comments and counting...

Best comment for me was "3 penalties, 4 red cards and a death"

Williams under so much pressure in this game .....

..... so many punters in NZ/Australia have put money on a red card, what if he doesn't deliver!