Swiss referee Stephan Studer has been selected for the U19 final between France and Spain on Friday. Studer has previously refereed two matches in the group stage of the tournament.

The 34-year-old was promoted to the international list in 2009, and he was promoted to category 3 on Uefa’s referee categories previously this year. On August 5th he will take charge of the second leg between Dnipro and Spartak Zlatibor in the third qualification round to the Europa League.

30/7/10
France – Spain
Referee: Stephan Studer, Switzerland
Assistant referees: Thorsten Schiffner, Germany; Pelikan Ondrej, Czech Republic
Fourth official: Bezborodov Vladislav, Russia
Uefa referee observer: Jozef Marko, Slovakia

At a meeting of the International Football Association Board on Wednesday, approval was given for a number of competitions to use additional assistant referees. In May, Ifab approved a two-year trial where federations could trial the experiment in competitions of their choice given they followed the guidelines provided by Ifab.

Uefa announced soon after that they would request a trial for both of their club tournaments in addition to the Euro 2012 qualifiers and final competition.

Fifa also confirmed that the issue of goal-line technology will be on the agenda of Ifab’s next meeting in October 2010.

Competitions where the AAR experiment has been approved:

Asian Football Confederation (AFC)
AFC President’s Cup 2010 (24-26 September)

Confederação Brasileira de Futebol (CBF)
Campeonato Baiano de Futebol Feminino 2010 (Sept-Dec 2010)
Campeonato Carioca de 2011

Federación Mexicana de Fútbol Asociación (FMF)
Torneo Clausura 2011
Torneo Apertura 2011
Torneo Clausura 2012

Fédération Française de Football (FFF)
Coupe de la Ligue 2010/2011 (League Cup)

Union des associations européennes de football (UEFA)
UEFA Champions League 2010/2011 and 2011/2012
UEFA Europa League 2010/2011 and 2011/2012
UEFA Super Cup 2010 and 2011.

The experiment is currently not being applied to national team competitions.

Ahead of each new season Uefa releases a list containing different referee categories and referees. This list will be the list from which Uefa chooses referees for Champions League, Europa League and various youth competitions. The referees on the Elite category will mainly be in charge of Champions League games, the Premier/Premier Development/Cat 2 will handle Europa League and Cat 3 and 4 will take charge of qualifiers to Europa League and youth games.

On the Elite category we have few changes, with only two referees promoted from the Premier development category. Manuel Mejuto Gonzalez, Tom Henning Øvrebø and Roberto Rosetti have all retired from refereeing. Gianluca Rocchi (ITA) and Kevin Blom (NED) are the new Elite referees.

Elite category
Frank De Bleeckere (01/07/1966), Belgium
Claus Bo Larsen (28/10/1965), Denmark
Martin Atkinson (31/03/1971), England
Howard Melton Webb (14/07/1971), England
Laurent Duhamel (10/10/1968), France
Stéphane Laurent Lannoy (18/09/1969), France
Wolfgang Stark (20/11/1969), Germany
Felix Brych Felix (03/08/1975), Germany
Florian Meyer (21/11/1968), Germany
Viktor Kassai (10/09/1975), Hungary
Gianluca Rocchi (25/08/1973), Italy Promoted from PD
Roberto Rosetti (18/09/1967), Italy
Nicola Rizzoli (05/10/1971), Italy
Alain Hamer (10/12/1965), Luxembourg
Pieter Vink (13/03/1967), Netherlands
Kevin Blom (21/02/1974), Netherlands Promoted from PD
Bjorn Kuipers (28/03/1973), Netherlands
Terje Hauge (05/10/1965), Norway
Tom Henning Øvrebø (26/06/1966), Norway
Olegaria Benquerença (18/10/1969), Portugal
Pedro Proença Oliveira Alves Garcia (03/11/1970), Portugal
Craig Alexander Thomson (20/06/1972), Scotland
Damir Skomina Damir (05/08/1976), Slovenia
Alberto Undiano Mallenco (08/10/1973), Spain
Manuel Mejuto Gonzalez (16/04/1965), Spain
Martin Hansson (06/04/1971), Sweden
Jonas Eriksson (28/03/1974), Sweden
Massimo Busacca (06/02/1969), Switzerland

Premier category
Pavel Kralovec (16/08/1977), Czech Republic Promoted from PD
Michael Dean (02/07/1968), England
Kristinn Jakobsson (11/06/1969), Iceland
Alon Yefet (01/09/1972), Israel Promoted from PD
Eric Braamhaar (13/10/1966), Netherlands
Alexandru Dan Tudor (13/09/1971), Romania Promoted from PD
Darko Ceferin (11/07/1968), Slovenia
Eduardo Iturralde Gonzalez (20/02/1967), Spain

Premier development category
Thomas Einwaller (25-04-1977), Austria
Serge Gumienny (14-04-1972), Belgium
Ivan Bebek (30-05-1977), Croatia
Tony Chapron (23-04-1972), France
Manuel Gräfe (21-09-1973), Germany Promoted from cat 2
Alan Kelly (09-04-1975), Ireland
Svein Oddvar Moen (22-01-1979), Norway
Bruno Miguel Duarte Paixao (18-05-1974), Portugal
Pavel Cristian Balaj (17-08-1971), Romania
Alexei Nikolaev (01-08-1971), Russia
William Collum (18-01-1979), Scotland
Carlos Velasco Carballo (16-03-1971), Spain
Stefan Johannesson (22-11-1971), Sweden
Cüneyt Cakir (23-11-1976), Turkey

You can download the complete document from here (pdf). Note that the list includes Roberto Rosetti and Michael Kempter, referees who will not work international games this season.

Other list:

Women – Elite – Premiere – Cat 2 – Cat 3
Futsal (Men) – Cat 1 – Cat 2 – Cat 3

Women and futsal lists via Dutch referee blog.

Forty-two-year-old Roberto Rosetti has decided to end his career as a referee after eight years on the international list. The accomplished Italian refereed the final between Spain and Germany in Euro 2008, and has participated in the last two World Cups.

Having refereed numerous matches in Champions League, and handled 13 seasons of Serie A football, Rosetti will now take on an administrative role in the association of Italian referees.

In South Africa, Roberto Rosetti was in charge of two matches, Ghana – Australia and Argentina – Mexico. Rosetti and his assistant came under critisism after allowing an offside goal to stand, and Fifa president Sepp Blatter apologised to the Mexican team after this error. The Italian refereeing team was not retained after this match.

The Italian refereed his first international match in 2002, and would have been age-eligible until 2012. Nicola Rizzoli will now be the number one ranked Italian referee in Europe.

Howard Webb will referee the World Cup final on Sunday between Netherlands and Spain in Soccer City. Webb will be assisted by his fellow countrymen Darren Cann and Mike Mullarkey. This will be Webb’s fourth match in the tournament. He has previously refereed Spain – Switzerland, Slovakia – Italy, and Brazil – Chile. Fourth official in the final will be Japanese Yuichi Nishimura.

The 38-year-old Englishman will referee his second major final this season, having refereed the Uefa Champions League final in May. Webb will succeed Jack Taylor who was the last English referee in charge of a World Cup final. Assistant referee Phil Sharp ran the line for Italian Pierluigi Collina in the 2002 final.

11/07/10
World Cup Final
Netherlands – Spain
Referee: Howard Webb, England
Assistant referees: Darren Cann; Michael Mullarkey
Fourth official: Yuichi Nishimura, Japan
Reserve assistant referee: Toru Sagara

Mexican referee Benito Archundia has been selected to referee the third place playoff between Germany and Uruguay on Saturday. This is only Archundia’s third game this tournament, a contrast to his record setting five games in the 2006 World Cup. In Germany four years ago Archundia was chosen to referee one of the semi-finals. Archundia will be assisted by Hector Vergara from Canada and Marvin Torrentera from Mexico. Marco Rodriguez is fourth official.

10/07/10
Third place playoff
Germany – Uruguay
Referee: Benito Archundia, Mexico
Assistant referees: Hector Vergara, Canada; Marvin Torrentera, Mexico
Fourth official: Marco Rodriguez, Mexico
Reserve assistant referee: Jose Luis Camargo, Mexico

Fifa has cut nine refereeing teams from the 19 remaining teams after the quarter-finals. With the semi-finals announced yesterday, the number of games left to referee has shrunk to two, the final and third-place playoff. The announcement of these two games are expected after the semi-finals.

The retained referees are:

Benito Archundia, Mexico
Jerome Damon, South Africa
Frank De Bleeckere, Belgium
Ravshan Irmatov, Uzbekistan
Viktor Kassai, Hungary
Yuichi Nishimura, Japan
Pablo Pozo, Chile
Oscar Ruiz, Colombia
Marco Rodriguez, Mexico
Howard Webb, England

The referees cut from the squad:

Khalil Al Ghamdi, Saudi Arabia
Hector Baldassi, Argentina
Carlos Batres, Guatemala
Olegario Benquerença, Portugal
Michael Hester, New Zealand
Eddy Maillet, Seychelles
Carlos Simon, Brazil
Wolfgang Stark, Germany
Alberto Undiano, Spain

Uzbek referee Ravshan irmatov has been appointed to his fifth match of the World Cup. The 32-year-old will take charge of the semi-final between Netherlands and Uruguay on Tuesday in Cape Town.

Irmatov will equal the top number of games refereed in one tournament. Horacio Elizondo and Benito Archundia both took charge of five games in the 2006 World Cup. Similar to Elizondo, Irmatov was also selected for the opening match in his first World Cup.

Viktor Kassai from Hungary has been appointed to the semi-final between Germany and Spain, his fourth match of the tournament.

Irmatov and Kassai are the two youngest referees in the 2010 World Cup.

06/07/10
Uruguay – Netherlands
Referee: Ravshan Irmatov, Uzbekistan

07/07/10
Germany – Spain
Referee: Viktor Kassai, Hungary

Yuichi Nishimura from Japan has been appointed to the quarter-final between Netherlands and Brazil on Friday. This will be Nishimura’s fourth appearance in this World Cup, having previously refereed Uruguay – France, Spain – Honduras and Paraguay – New Zealand.

The second Asian official in action in the quarter-finals is Uzbek referee Ravshan Irmatov. Having been selected for three previous matches, including the opening game of the tournament, he will on Saturday be in charge of Argentina – Germany. The last time these two giants met in the World Cup was four years ago, also in the quarter-finals. That match will be remembered for the post-match melée, in which Argentinian substitute Leandro Cufre was show a red card after the final whistle. Referee in that match was Lubos Michel.

02/07/10
Netherlands – Brazil
Referee: Yuichi Nishimura, Japan

Uruguay – Ghana
Referee: Olegario Benquerença, Portugal

03/07/10
Argentina – Mexico
Referee: Ravshan Irmatov, Uzbekistan

Paraguay – Spain
Referee: Carlos Batres, Guatamala

Fifa has announced that ten of the twenty-nine officiating teams will be sent home from the tournament, including Roberto Rosetti, Jorge Larrionda and Massimo Busacca.

Roberto Rosetti and Jorge Larrionda were expected to be sent home after Sunday’s refereeing mistakes. Mistakes Fifa president Sepp Blatter apologised for on Tuesday.

In addition to the five refereeing reserve teams, Koman Coulibaly, Roberto Rosetti, Massimo Busacca, Jorge Larrionda and Stephane Lannoy has been told they will not take further part in the tournament.

Fifa president Sepp Blatter has issued an apology to Mexico and England after Sunday’s refereeing mistakes. In a round table discussion he also talked about re-opening the question about using technology to assist referees. The Ifab, with Fifa spearheading it, said a definite no to technology earlier this year.

Neither the Uruguayan nor the Italian referee team were present on the referees third media day on Tuesday, citing personal reasons for their no-show. Both teams are expected to be sent home when Fifa makes their final selection of referees before the quarter-finals.

The mistakes in Sunday’s games were both the responsibility of the assistant referees, a rare sight in this World Cup where the assistant referees have received praise for their standard.