That's part 2 of the series in that I am trying to predict the composition of the referee team to be nominated for World Cup 2014. After having already concentrated on Asia, this text will now examine the situation in the African confederation CAF. The remaining confederations are supposed to follow so that a final list of predicted World Cup referees will emerge.
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| These men's flight are probably already booked (c) fifareferees |
In the following lists, you can find the cell "Community Vote". The percentages you can find there refers to our game "Your World Cup 2014" conducted at the beginning of this month. They hence equate the relative frequency of the respective referees' appearance in the community's World Cup lists. This means that this percentage shows in how many of your votes their name has appeared. In addition, you can get a quick overview on the amount of FIFA organized matches the respective referees have taken charge of during the last three years. These matches include World Cup 2010 matches, qualifiers and play-offs for World Cup 2014, youth tournaments (U-20/U-17), Club World Cups from 2010 to 2013 and finally the Olympic Games 2012 (= "FIFA 10-13").
CAF (Confederation of African Football)
REFEREE with ASSISTANT REFEREES | MA | Date of Birth | FIFA 10-13 | Vote | |
AFRICA (CAF) - 7 | |||||
Referee | Néant ALIOUM | CMR | 01.01.1982 | 11 | 73% |
Assistant 1 | Evarist MENKOUANDE | CMR | 14.11.1974 | 13 | |
Assistant 2 | Peter EDIBI | NGA | 05.01.1970 | 4 | |
Referee | Daniel BENNETT | RSA | 22.08.1976 | 8 | 79% |
Assistant 1 | Aden Marwa RANGE | KEN | 31.01.1977 | 8 | |
Assistant 2 | Zakhele Thusi SIWELA | RSA | 02.09.1982 | 8 | |
Referee | Badara DIATTA | SEN | 02.08.1969 | 8 | 74% |
Assistant 1 | Djibril CAMARA | SEN | 20.08.1983 | 13 | |
Assistant 2 | El Hadji Malick SAMBA | SEN | 02.04.1979 | 7 | |
Referee | Noumandiez DOUE | CIV | 29.09.1970 | 10 | 60% |
Assistant 1 | Songuifolo YEO | CIV | 01.01.1970 | 8 | |
Assistant 2 | Jean-Claude BIRUMUSHAHU | BDI | 13.02.1972 | 8 | |
Referee | Bakary Papa GASSAMA | GAM | 10.02.1979 | 11 | 81% |
Assistant 1 | Angesom OGBAMARIAM | ERI | 13.09.1971 | 12 | |
Assistant 2 | Felicien KABANDA | RWA | 19.07.1971 | 11 | |
Referee | Djamel HAIMOUDI | ALG | 10.12.1970 | 10 | 92% |
Assistant 1 | Rédouane ACHIK | MAR | 27.06.1981 | 10 | |
Assistant 2 | Abdelhak ETCHIALI | ALG | 21.04.1972 | 6 | |
Referee | Slim JEDIDI | TUN | 17.04.1970 | 6 | 41% |
Assistant 1 | Bechir HASSANI | TUN | 22.09.1969 | 10 | |
Assistant 2 | Anouar HMILA | TUN | 14.07.1974 | 5 | |
As done in the post about AFC, it might be useful to gently start with those referees who have already bought their ticket to Brazil. In Africa, this does only count for the officiating team headed by Algeria's Djamel Haimoudi.
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| (c) dailymail.com |
Tunisian Slim Jedidi is the other referee from the Northern zone of Africa. At the Olympic Games and during U-17 World Cup 2013, he did not receive the biggest matches but showed overall satisfying performances. This won't be enough though (probably). After his controversial performance at AFCON 2013 and the aftermath of the match, when several forms of media reported a suspension issued against him by CAF, he did not appear very often in international and domestic matches. De facto, Jedidi was only appointed twice in the CAF World Cup qualifiers and only once after the AFCON problems: Angola vs Liberia. Both teams were already out and had no chance to qualify for the next round. So it is very sure that Jedidi is only a pre-selected official on paper but not in reality. This is a real pity as other referees from the same region such as Bouchaib El Ahrach of Morocco, whom I consider as the actual no.1 of Africa despite my limited knowledge of African refereeing, would have had many chances to qualify for Brazil instead. As a conclusion, Jedidi plays no role for the World Cup.
But then, it becomes tricky. First of all, we cannot be sure how many places this confederation will get. It could be 3+1 or 4+1. I will concentrate on the latter now and state whom I consider to be out of everything in the case of 3+1.
career: just a few months after this tournament, he suddenly appeared on the pre-list for World Cup 2014. As a consequence, he was immediately invited to handle matches at the Olympic Games 2012. In both matches, he has proven courage and performed in a decent manner with room for improvement. At AFCON 2013, he then started with the intense derby between Tunisia and Algeria. After South Africa - Morocco, he took charge of the semifinal between Mali and Nigeria. Specially the first match exposed problems for Gassama, who for example missed a clear penalty kick. But as his semifinal nomination showed, CAF seems to grant him some mistakes taking into account his fast-track progress over not even two years. The same weakness of assessing penalty area incidents unveiled at U-20 World Cup 2013 and in his play-off for the World Cup where he awarded a wrong penalty kick in favour of Nigeria. Therefore, it is quite certain that he actually needs more time to prosper his skills and collect experience. But without any doubt, his referee style is the most modern among all African pre-list referees.
That was surely also a reason for selecting him to officiate matches at Club World Cup. In his first game, he refereed Raja Casablanca, a team from CAF zone. This actually infringes the confederation neutrality rule. It is very likely that Busacca already indicates that it might happen in Brazil that sometimes referees could meet a team belonging to their own confederation in one of their matches. Anyway, his second match was more meaningful: he was the first African to take charge of a FIFA semifinal for many years. He performed well with areas to improve in Guangzhou - Bayern München.
Personally, I would definitely choose him for the final tournament, but it might be that Busacca is a bit more hesitant. Maybe being fourth official would be the golden way as he could prepare himself for World Cup 2018 collecting first experiences in Brazil. On the other hand, Gassama has a certain advantage that is called Felicien Kabanda. The experienced assistant referee from Rwanda might get support from former World Cup assistant referee Celestin Ntagungira (2006, 2010), who is sitting in both CAF and FIFA Referees' Committees. Kabanda was recently injured though which made him miss the Club World Cup 2013.
There is even a referee who is a bit younger than above mentioned Gassama. Cameroon's Néant Alioum, born in 1982. Although he is three years younger than the Gambian, he has a year more FIFA experience, as he joined U-17 World Cup 2011 in Mexico and controlled four matches including a quarterfinal. He caught our and surely also the committee's attention by very good performances and confirmed this impression at the consecutive AFCON tournament(s), although the quarterfinal between Ghana and Tunisia (2012) could have been kept under more match control. Some qualifier matches have however revealed obvious weaknesses of Alioum who partly missed really clear penalty kicks or red cards (for example, no penalty in Gambia - Morocco and no red card for a 100% clear case of dogso in Benin - Algeria, where he only issued a 2nd yellow card). However, his play-off performance as well as both matches at U-20 World Cup 2013 have been very good. Moreover, his assistant referees also bolster and increase Alioum's chances to be on the World Cup list: Evarist Menkouande is more or less undoubtfully considered as the best African assistant referee for years, while Nigerian Peter Edibi is a strong team-mate as well proven many times at AFCON. Like Gassama and Haimoudi, Alioum is nominated for the CAF trophy of Africa's Best Referee 2013. In the end, Haimoudi made the run, but it shows how much confidence and trust CAF is paying to both young officials. I would like to see them both on the field of play in Brazil.
As we know FIFA and their referee committee, almost everything can be influenced by political moves. And therefore it should not go by the board that Senegal's Badara Sene might play a crucial role. This committee member might be the main reason why a full Senegalese trio have been included in the pre-list headed by 1969 born Badara Diatta. The team is completed by 30-year-old Djibril Camara and 34-year-old El Hadji Malick Samba. They for example acted at AFCON 2013 in some important matches. One year earlier, Diatta had taken charge of AFCON 2012 final between Zambia and Côte d'Ivoire in Gabon. His performances were never at the level of Haimoudi or Gassama at their best, but were absolutely solid and characterized by a lot of experience: it is the second time that Diatta's name is appearing on a pre-list after 2008-2010. Overmorrov, he will go into his fifteenth year as a FIFA licensed international referee. Diatta was present at five AFCONs and active in 15 World Cup qualifier matches. However, in all those years, he was only invited to two FIFA organized tournaments: he took charge of one match at Olympia 2008 and controlled three matches including a round of 16 tie and the third place match at U-17 World Cup2013. Besides, he was appointed for a tight and important play-off some weeks ago and did well in it. Can all this be enough for a World Cup participation? Maybe. In my opinion, it would be deserved after all these years and a sensible counterpart to the younger officials I proposed above. If only four (3+1) referees are selected from Africa, I would like to see him as standby official. Every referee team could profit from his experience as a consequence. So in case of 3+1, my selection would be clear: Haimoudi, Gassama, Alioum + Diatta. For the case of 4+1 officials, I have to shift focus on the two remaining referees though.
Côte d'Ivoire's Noumandiez Doue is one of them. He is a quite experienced referee born in 1970. Like Haimoudi, he participated in U-20 World Cup 2011 where he handled two matches and, from my point of view, did not really recommend himself for the World Cup in 2014. He might be described as a authoritative, dutiful and humorless referee, who is able to apply the Laws of the Game in a solid manner. But specially at U-20 World Cup 2013, there were several examples when players tried to undermine his authority by not showing the required respect for his decisions and work on the pitch. Unfortunately, they managed it in many cases. Doue's style is accompanied by gestures that, to be honest, sometimes miss their target. They mostly appear to be quite farcical and artificial, a circumstance which underlines his problems to earn respect for his decisions.
Apart from an award by CAF honouring him as Africa's Best Referee of 2011 and a Champions League final which was quite chaotic but well-refereed, CAF rarely appointed him for really decisive matches except Cameroon - Libya in the qualifiers for the World Cup (the winner was qualified for the play-off round). But coming back to his weird style: it is maybe needed in Africa. The matches he handled there were better; he definitely earned more respect and approval from the players. We have to accept and respect different mentalities in refereeing, but this does not change that I consider Doue as a referee who is not on World Cup level.Last but not least, there is only one referee team from the more Southern part of Africa. South African Daniel Bennett represents this zone. Some English readers and referees maybe know this name: Born in Dewsbury, England, he has been being a long-standing friend of David Elleray. Based on this friendship, Elleray lobbied for him in the English referee committee so that Bennett attended two semifinals of FA Cup as the sixth official in 2009. Well, enough nepotism. Apart from that, Bennett is also a very good and appreciated referee in South Africa's first league for many years. The 37-year-old missed the last World Cup in his home country, since Jerome Damon had been the no.1 then. Bennett convinced at several AFCON matches and re-paid the trust CAF had put in him in vital matches like Ghana - Nigeria in 2010 (semifinal), Mali - Côte d'Ivoire (semifinal) or the derby between Morocco and Tunisia (group stage), both in 2012. Nevertheless, this year's AFCON gave me many doubts. He took charge of a group stage match between Togo and Tunisia, issued 9 yellow cards, had almost no control and wrongly evaluated at least three actually easy penalty area decisions, maybe even four. He left the tournament after this match and was even officially removed from the CAF refereeing roster due to poor shape. But he came back with the second leg of the final of CAF's Confederations Cup 2013. In FIFA tournaments, he never got challenging matches but only four low-profile matches in Club World Cup and U-17 WC 2013.
The most important aspect of this referee is his fitness. Even in 2012 it was visible that he could maybe lose one or two kilos...his sprinting abilities were not the best, his movement to be improved as well. Nonetheless he passed the fitness tests in the last months which normally exposes a huge problem for several South African referees - many referees had failed it in 2012, for example, which almost jeopardized the first part of the season in South Africa's top division. Bennett was one of not many officials who passed the tests successfully. But of course, one has to ask whether a referee who is withdrawn confidence by the continental federation due to poor form can be eligible to be selected for a World Cup. His biggest hope probably is that geopolitically it might be appreciated to have a referee from Africa's South among the World Cup officials.On the whole, I would therefore favour four World Cup referees from Africa. Néant Alioum, Bakary Gassama and Djamel Haimoudi as main referees and Badara Diatta as standby official. If there will be five spots (4+1) though, I would tend to include Doue in the list as standby official making Diatta a main referee. But the duel between Bennett and Doue is very close and I don't want to decide on that to be honest. Therefore, my prediction for African referees at the World Cup is (again emphasizing that four referees would be enough and compliant with performance principles):
REFEREE with ASSISTANT REFEREES | MA | Date of Birth | |
AFRICA – 4 REFEREE TEAMS + 1 STANDBY TEAM (?) | |||
Referee | Néant ALIOUM | CMR | 01.01.1982 |
Assistant 1 | Evarist MENKOUANDE | CMR | 14.11.1974 |
Assistant 2 | Peter EDIBI | NGA | 05.01.1970 |
Referee | Badara DIATTA | SEN | 02.08.1969 |
Assistant 1 | Djibril CAMARA | SEN | 20.08.1983 |
Assistant 2 | El Hadji Malick SAMBA | SEN | 02.04.1979 |
Referee | Bakary Papa GASSAMA | GAM | 10.02.1979 |
Assistant 1 | Angesom OGBAMARIAM | ERI | 13.09.1971 |
Assistant 2 | Felicien KABANDA | RWA | 19.07.1971 |
Referee | Djamel HAIMOUDI | ALG | 10.12.1970 |
Assistant 1 | Rédouane ACHIK | MAR | 27.06.1981 |
Assistant 2 | Abdelhak ETCHIALI | ALG | 21.04.1972 |
Referee | Noumandiez DOUE | CIV | 29.09.1970 |
Assistant 1 | Songuifolo YEO | CIV | 01.01.1970 |
Assistant 2 | Jean-Claude BIRUMUSHAHU | BDI | 13.02.1972 |
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