You know the old football chant “You’re not fit to referee”? Fans will sing that at an official having who’s having a particularly bad or biased game, but FIFA has said it quite literally to two refereeing trios who had been selected for World Cup duty, but then failed the pre-World Cup (and Alex Ferguson approved?) referee fitness test. FIFA has told the six men not to bother turning up for World Cup whistle blowing.
The two sets of referees no longer going to South Africa are:
Referee: Mohamed Benouza (Algeria) + assistant referees: Nasser Abdel Nadi (Egypt)/Maamar Chabane (Algeria)
Referee: Carlos Amarilla (Paraguay) + assistant referees: Emigdio Ruiz (Paraguay)/Nicolás Yegros (Paraguay)
Harsh. But wait, it gets worse.
It wasn’t that all six men failed the fitness test. The two referees – Mohomed Benouza and Carlos Amarilla – were apparently fine. It was their assistants that sank the ship by being out of shape. FIFA had grouped referees into teams of three with a common language, but also made clear that all three must pass the fitness test, or none of the three got to go to South Africa. Awkward.
So despite them being perfectly fit for the job, Benouza and Amarilla’s names will be removed from the list of World Cup referees, with Uruguay’s Martin E. Vazquez Broqueta called up as a replacement. If I’m Benouza or Amarilla here, I’m angry. I’m also putting my two linesmen on some sort of salad, water and long distance running regimen for the next four years, in the hope of making it to World Cup 2014.
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