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Gomes, Siwela get the nod to referee at Qatar World Cup
Gomes and Siwela refereed the Africa Cup of Nations final in Cameroon earlier this year.
Victor Gomes engages Mohammed Salah in this year’s Africa Cup of Nations final. Picture: Shaun Roy/Backpagepix.
Victor Gomes and Zakhele Siwela are set to represent South Africa at the 2022 Fifa World Cup in Qatar after both were selected on the list of match officials published by Fifa for the tournament on Thursday.
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Gomes was selected as a referee, while Siwela was picked as an assistant, as was Lesotho’s Souru Phatsoane – the same trio joined up, to much acclaim, at this year’s Africa Cup of Nations.
Gomes, Siwela and Phatsoane were widely praised for their performances in Cameroon, and were selected to referee the final, where Gomes’ interactions with Egypt’s Mohammed Salah were widely publicised.
The duo will not be in contact again in Qatar, as Egypt did not qualify, knocked out by Senegal in the play-offs, the same team that beat them in the Afcon final.
In a statement on Thursday, Fifa said that “36 referees, 69 assistant referees and 24 video match officials (VMOs) have been chosen in close cooperation with the six confederations, based on their quality and the performances delivered at FIFA tournaments as well as at other international and domestic competitions in recent years.”
They also announced that female officials have been selected for a men’s World Cup finals for the first time.
“We are very happy that with Stéphanie Frappart from France, Salima Mukansanga from Rwanda and Yoshimi Yamashita from Japan, as well as assistant referees Neuza Back from Brazil, Karen Díaz Medina from Mexico and Kathryn Nesbitt from the USA, we have been able to call up female match officials for the first time in the history of a FIFA World Cup,” said Pierluigi Collina, a former referee and now the chairman of FIFA’s Refereeing Committee.”
