PLAY THE ADVANTAGE

I’ll analyze this list more in the coming days, but a couple of notes:

Mark Geiger from the US is in. Go, Mark.

Mark Clattenburg from England, despite having had a good year, was passed over for Howard Webb, who refereed the final in 2010. Clatts is only 38, so he’ll have another shot.

Europe’s referees are mostly the old standbys – Webb, Proenca, Rizzoli, Carballo – with a few new faces thrown in. One huge thing: Stephane Lannoy did not make the list, meaning there are no French referees in the tournament.

But I’ll talk more about that later. Here’s the list!

Asia:

• Ravshan Irmatov, Uzbekistan (Rasulov, Kochkarov)
• Yuichi Nishimura, Japan (Sagara, Nagi)
• Nawaf Shukralla, Bahrain (Abdulla Tulefat, Saleh)
• Ben Williams, Australia (Cream, Anaz)

Support: Alireza Faghani, Iran 

Africa

• Noumandiez Doue, Ivory Coast (Yeo, Birumushahu)
• Bakary Gassama, Gambia (Menkouande, Kabanda)
• Djamel Haimoudi, Algeria (Achik, Etchiali)

Support: Neant Alioum (Cameroon) and Daniel Bennett (South Africa)

North, Central America and the Caribbean

• Joel Aguilar, El Salvador (Torres Mejia, Zumba Galan)
• Mark Geiger, United States (Hurd, Fletcher)
• Marco Rodriguez Moreno, Mexico (Torrentera Rivera, Quintero Huitron)

Support: Roberto Moreno Salazar, Panama, and Walter Lopez Castellanos, Guatemala

South America

• Enrique Osses, Chile (Astroza Cardenas, Roman Retamal)
• Nestor Pitana, Argentina (Maidana, Belati)
• Wilmar Roldan, Colombia (Clavijo Prieto, Diaz Barrero)
• Sandro Ricci, Brazil (De Carvalho, Van Gasse)
• Carlos Vera Rodriguez, Ecuador (Lescano Guerrero, Romero Ibarra)

Support: Victor Carillo Casanova, Peru

Oceania

• Peter O’Leary, New Zealand (Hintz, Kumar)

Support: Norbert Hauata, Tahiti

Europe

• Felix Brych, Germany (Borsch, Lupp)
• Cuneyt Cakir, Turkey (Duran, Ongun)
• Jonas Eriksson, Sweden (Klasenius, Waernmark)
• Bjorn Kuipers, Netherlands (Van Roekel, Zeinstra)
• Milorad Mazic, Serbia (Ristic, Djurdjevic)
• Pedro Proenca, Portugal (Cunha Miranda, Garcias Bolinhas Trigo)
• Nicola Rizzoli, Italy (Stefani, Faverani)
• Carlos Velasco Carballo, Spain (Fernandez, Jimenez)
• Howard Webb, England (Mullarkey and Cann)

Support: Svein Oddvar Moen, Norway