The FIFA Referees Committee has announced the selected match officials to officiate at Colombia’s forthcoming 2024 FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup.
The tournament will take place from August 31 to September 22.
A total of 58 women match officials, including 18 referees, 36 assistant referees, and four support referees, will take charge of the matches.
Two African referees and four assistant referees have made the list, with one selected as a support referee.
No referee from Zambia or the Southern African region has made the list of match officials.
The referees who have made the list are Konan Akissi of Ivory Coast and Saad Ali Elmaghrabi Shahenda from Egypt, while the assistant referees are Atezambong Fomo Carine (Cameroon), Bangurambona Fides (Burundi), Hamdi Soukaina (Morocco), and Ouahab Asma Feriel (Algeria), while Togolese referee Amedome Vincentia is listed as a support referee.
VS to be tried at U-20 World Cup
FIFA Referees Committee chairman Pierluigi Collina has revealed that the tournament will be used to assess referees who will take up the challenge at the 2027 FIFA Women’s World Cup in Brazil.
Collina added that FIFA will also use the tournament as a trial for Football Video Support.
“The FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup is the next important milestone in preparing the potential candidates for the FIFA Women’s World Cup Brazil 2027. The tournament will also give us a great opportunity to further trial football video support following the promising tests conducted during the Blue Stars tournament,” Collina said.
Football Video Support (VS) is seen as an alternative, cost-effective way to use technology to support match officials.
FIFA states that, unlike the video assistant referee system, VS does not use dedicated video match officials and therefore does not check all match-changing incidents.
Football Video Support enables respective head coaches to make a limited number of review requests per match when they feel that an obvious error has been made in match-changing incidents, such as goals, penalty decisions, direct red-card incidents, or cases of mistaken identity. The players can also recommend that their coach request a review.
READ MORE: Chabu breaks silence over Chipolopolo call-ups
