Preamble

 

Barry Davies' excellent piece at the start of the BBC's Christmas review of World Cup 1994 does a better job than I at a succinct résumé of the themes that defined the American-hosted world championship. It was a tournament that broke new ground, most obviously in the tournament's location, but also in the officiating, one of the dominant narratives across the fifty-two matches.

The refereeing of World Cup 1990, though perceived to be very strict at the time, did nothing really to protect star players, such as Marco van Basten, who were sustaining serious injuries with worrying frequency. Football had moved on; refereeing had not. 

So then, FIFA General Secretary Sepp Blatter (the most important person in (modern) football refereeing ever and he has never handled a match himself!) set about a much more radical set of instructions for the officials to execute at World Cup 1994, a very wide extension of orders for 1990. Most simply, Blatter had set his sights on sliding tackles from behind and incorrect offside calls.

The selection process was somewhat similar to nowadays. FIFA pre-selected thirty referees and thirty linesmen (the first time this had occurred) to attend a seminar in Dallas, from which twenty-four referees and twenty-two assistants in each list would remain and handle the matches at World Cup 1994. Below are the list of officials, those who were removed in the final list are noted as such. 

I hope you enjoy this look back at a revolutionary tournament for football refereeing (only rivalled in that by the championship that followed twenty years later), in a World Cup considered to be one of the best in the post-war period! And of course, those beautiful coloured shirts, which débuted in the United States. 

Officials

Referees:

Jamal Al-Sharif (from Syria)

Arturo Angeles (from the United States)

Rodrigo Badilla (from Costa Rica)

Fabio Baldas (from Italy)

Arturo Brizio Carter (from Mexico)

Ali Bujsaim (from the United Arab Emirates)

Manuel Díaz Vega (from Spain)

Philip Don (from England)

Ernesto Filippi (from Uruguay)

Neji Jouini (from Tunisia)

Bo Karlsson (from Sweden)

Lim Kee Chong (from Mauritius) 

Hellmut Krug (from Germany)

Francisco Lamolina (from Argentina)

Renato Marsiglia (from Brazil)

Peter Mikkelsen (from Denmark)

Leslie Mottram (from Scotland)

Sándor Puhl (from Hungary)

Pierluigi Pairetto (from Italy)

Joël Quiniou (from France)

Kurt Röthlisberger (from Switzerland)

Alberto Tejada (from Peru)

José Torres (from Colombia)

Mario van der Ende (from the Netherlands)

Jean-Fidèle Diramba (from Gabon)

Guy Goethals (from Belgium)

Salvadore Imperatore (from Chile)

Vasílis Nikákis (from Greece)

Marcio Rezende (from Brazil)

Obata Shin'ichirō (from Japan)

[Imperatore, Nikákis, Rezende and Shin'ichirō were nominated as stand-by officials]

Linesmen:

Yousif Al-Ghattan (from Bahrain)

Paulo Alves (from Brazil)

Eugene Brazzale (from Australia)

Raimundo Calix (from Honduras)

Carl-Johan Christensen (from Denmark)

Jan Dolstra (from the Netherlands)

Gordon Dunster (from Australia)

Mikael Everstig (from Sweden)

Mohammad Fanaei (from Iran)

Park Hae-yong (from Korea Republic)

Abdulmajid Hassan (from Egypt)

Valentin Ivanov (from Russia)

Douglas James (from Trinidad and Tobago)

Michał Listkiewicz (from Poland)

Luc Matthys (from Belgium)

Sándor Márton (from Hungary)

Roy Pearson (from England)

Rharib El-Jilali (from Morocco)

Domenico Ramicone (from Italy)

Ernesto Taibi (from Argentina)

Tapio Yli-Karro (from Finland)

Venancio Zárate (from Paraguay)

Víctor Balderrama (from Bolivia)

Cho Hae-il (from DPR Korea)

Alekseĭ Iliev (from Bulgaria)