{"id":457579,"date":"2026-03-04T19:31:09","date_gmt":"2026-03-04T19:31:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/457579\/"},"modified":"2026-03-04T19:31:09","modified_gmt":"2026-03-04T19:31:09","slug":"le-crunch-will-have-a-new-man-in-charge-due-to-middle-east-conflict","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/457579\/","title":{"rendered":"‘Le Crunch’ will have a new man in charge due to Middle East conflict"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

With Nic Berry ruled out due to the ongoing travel disruption caused by the conflict in the Middle East, Georgian Nika Amashukeli has been appointed as the referee for the final game of this year\u2019s Six Nations<\/a> between France<\/a> and England<\/a> at the Stade de France, on Saturday, March 14th.<\/p>\n

Australian Berry had originally been chosen for what many thought would be the Six Nations title decider in Paris, which takes place the day after his 42nd birthday.<\/p>\n

But the biggest Middle East carriers have ruled out resuming scheduled flights until at least Thursday, throwing travel plans into chaos.<\/p>\n

Berry was also due to be an assistant referee for Italy\u2019s game against England in Rome this Saturday and will now miss out on a second fixture after World Rugby confirmed the change today.<\/p>\n

Ireland\u2019s Andrew Brace will fill the assistant referee spot vacated by Amashukeli.<\/p>\n

Tblisi-born Amashukeli has previous experience of refereeing \u2018Le Crunch\u2019, having been the man in the middle when England won 26-25 in round two of last year\u2019s championship.<\/p>\n

That is France\u2019s only defeat with Amashukeli in the middle with Les Bleus holding a W3, L1 record after victories over Scotland, Fiji<\/a> and New Zealand.<\/p>\n

It will be the second time the Georgian official referees England in this championship, having overseen their 31-20 loss to Scotland<\/a> in the Calcutta Cup match on Valentine\u2019s Day.<\/p>\n

England now have a W5, L2 record with Amashukeli as referee, their other loss coming against New Zealand<\/a> in July 2024.<\/p>\n

It will be his 34th Test overall and sixth in the Six Nations. He was the first Georgian to officiate in the competition when he took charge of Ireland<\/a> vs Italy<\/a> in Dublin in 2022.<\/p>\n

Updated match official panel for France vs England, Saturday, 14 March:<\/p>\n

Referee: Nika Amashukeli (Georgia)
AR1: Andrew Brace (Ireland)
AR2: Hollie Davidson (Scotland)
TMO: Brett Conan (Australia)
FPRO: Matteo Liperini (Italy)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"With Nic Berry ruled out due to the ongoing travel disruption caused by the conflict in the Middle…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":457580,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[5903,101,56,54,55],"class_list":["post-457579","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-rugby","tag-rugby","tag-sports","tag-uk","tag-united-kingdom","tag-unitedkingdom"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457579","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=457579"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/457579\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/457580"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=457579"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=457579"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=457579"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}