World Cup appointments

[ARF]

Anyone else finding the appointing so far a little bizarre, insomuch as several referees have been appointed to (or already refereed) two fixtures before others have even been appointed to their first fixture?

 

[cwyeary]

Anyone else finding the appointing so far a little bizarre, insomuch as several referees have been appointed to (or already refereed) two fixtures before others have even been appointed to their first fixture?

It's standard. Some were set to be support refs the entire time.

 

[socal lurker]

Assigning gets really, really complicated at the WC. Some refs don't get early games because they are the bottom tier and are only going to get a game with little impact, if at all. Some are not actually expected to get a game, though who those are is often not clear. Sometimes the top tier refs don't get a game early because there isn't one that the assignors think is worth "spending" them on. And you add, mostly, confederation neutrality: in general a referee won't be assigned to a game if one team is from his federation. (That is being breached for Argentina-Poland, but is rare, and may well explain why the assignments were late getting out.) Rs also won't work a game in the Group their home country plays in, or that is seen as affecting who their team will play next (e.g., from the group their group will play in the first KO round). And sometimes a ref won't be given a game that is more likely to get messy because the powers that be don't want to risk that ref being stained by a bad game and hard to use in the quarter final or later. Oh, and you can mix past experience with the ref, as well as geo political messes, and it all adds up to a very complex logic puzzle.

 

[RustyRef]

I suspect those not there as a team of three, including the female officials, aren't going to get a game.

 

[socal lurker]

I suspect those not there as a team of three, including the female officials, aren't going to get a game.

I think you are right to the extent that I don't think we will see any of the women with a whistle. But I would not be surprised if they find a way to slot in a woman to join a team as an AR so that they will have had an active women referee, not just as 4th/5th or in the VAR booth. (There is pressure within FIFA to do that--there was pressure to have Frappart whistle the opening game, which Collina fortunately was able to withstand.)