Calgary referee Drew Fischer will work the FIFA World Cup after being named Thursday to the tournament\u2019s list of match officials.<\/p>\n
FIFA selected 52 referees, 88 assistant referees and 30 video match officials from 50 member associations for the expanded event.<\/p>\n
Assistant referees Michael Barwegen of Coaldale, Alta., and Lyes Arfa of Laval, Que., were also named, giving Canada three officials at the tournament.<\/p>\n
The appointments, drawn from all six confederations, include 41 more officials than the 2022 tournament in Qatar and follow a three-year evaluation process based on performance at domestic and international levels. Six women match officials were also selected, matching the 2022 total.<\/p>\n
Fischer, 45, is a two-time Major League Soccer referee of the year and has worked more than 200 MLS matches since his debut in 2012.<\/p>\n
He served as a video assistant referee at the World Cup in Qatar, including the semifinal, and has also worked as a VAR at the women\u2019s World Cup and Club World Cup, and as an on-field and video official at the Olympic Games.<\/p>\n
Match officials will report to a pre-tournament seminar in Miami beginning May 31, with video officials based in Dallas at the International Broadcast Centre during the competition.<\/p>\n
As in previous tournaments, goal-line technology and an advanced version of semi-automated offside will be used, along with connected ball technology and referee body cameras that will provide new on-field perspectives.\u00a0<\/p>\n
\u201cFor the first time in World Cup history, fans will be able to see things from the referee\u2019s on-field perspective,\u201d FIFA referees chief Pierluigi Collina said.<\/p>\n
The World Cup kicks off June 11 in Mexico City and Guadalajara, with matches also played in the United States and Canada.<\/p>\n
Toronto will host six matches at the tournament, with Vancouver staging seven.<\/p>\n
The Canadian men\u2019s team opens the tournament on June 12 in Toronto against Bosnia and Herzegovina before facing Qatar on June 18 and Switzerland on June 24 in Vancouver.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Calgary referee Drew Fischer will work the FIFA World Cup after being named Thursday to the tournament\u2019s list…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":593084,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194293],"tags":[49,2798,48],"class_list":["post-593083","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-calgary","tag-ca","tag-calgary","tag-canada"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593083","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=593083"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/593083\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/593084"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=593083"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=593083"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=593083"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}