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FIFA reduces referees for World Cups finals
News & Trends •
the 17 referees picked for the next phase include alireza faghani iran and nawaf shukralla bahrain from the asian football confederation afc1 fifas referees committee has reduced the number of referees for the final phase of its 2018 world cup in russia1 pierluigi collina the committees head told reporters in moscow that this was because the number of referees at the 32-day competition has to be reduced at this point in time1 the number of referees has been reduced in view of the number of matches left and the teams that have qualified for the next round1 we have only eight matches left and only eight teams left also1 these are in the quarter-finals four matches the semi-finals two matches third-place or losers final one match and final one match1 only eight matches are involved in this number of matches also1 so there is therefore a need for a reduction in the number the former italian referee said1 it has therefore selected 17 referees 37 assistant referees and 10 video assistant referees vars for the final phase1 others are malang diedhiou senegal and janny sikazwe zambia from the confederation of african football caf1 from the confederation of central american and caribbean football concacaf are mark geiger u.s. jair marrufo u.s. and cesar arturo ramos mexico1 also retained for the competition are andres cunha uruguay nestor pitana argentina and sandro ricci brazil from the confederation of south american football conmebol1 from the oceanic football confederation ofc is matthew conger new zealand1 the rest are from the european football association uefa namely cuneyt cakir turkey bjorn kuipers the netherlands antonio mateu spain milorad mazic serbia gianluca rocchi italy and damir skomina slovenia1 ten vars were also picked to continue on in the competition1 the news agency of nigeria nan reports that 36 referees and 63 assistant referees were selected in march for the competition with 13 vars1 they were picked from the 53 groups of three referees placed under fifas radar for the competition since september 2014. nan olalaib1