Who is referee for World Cup final?

Playing in a FIFA World Cup final is a massive honor for the squads taking part in the tournament, but for football match officials, it is the biggest reward one can achieve in the profession.

Only one person every four years can officiate a men’s World Cup final, and the chosen individual is often regarded the best referee in men’s world football.

This year’s tournament will see a new face named to officiate a World Cup final again, as nobody has ever officiated two World Cup finals.

So who will take charge of the match? The Sporting News takes a look at the 12 men selected as possible choices to be entrusted with the whistle at the 2022 World Cup final.

Who is the referee for the World Cup final?

At this point, FIFA has not released who will be officiating the 2022 World Cup final.

Throughout the 2022 World Cup, FIFA has generally been releasing referee assignments about 48 hours prior to kickoff for each game. Therefore, it’s reasonable to expect that the World Cup final referee will be announced sometime on Friday.

What we do know, however, are the 12 officials who are up for selection for the 2022 World Cup final, and from that, we can draw certain scenarios based on the particular restrictions each official has.

Referees eligible for 2022 World Cup final

Thanks to numerous reports from various journalists covering the 2022 World Cup, including ESPN’s rules expert Dale Johnson, we know that 12 officials at the tournament have been shortlisted for the World Cup final, while the others have been released from duty.

Below is a table of the 12 match officials made available for selection:

Official	Country	2022 World Cup games officiated
Abdulrahman Al Jassim	Qatar	1
Raphael Claus	Brazil	2
Ismael Elfath	USA	3
Mustapha Ghorbal	Algeria	2
Danny Makkelie	Netherlands	2
Szymon Marciniak	Poland	2
Mohammed Abdulah Hassan	UAE	2
Daniele Orsato	Italy	3
Cesar Ramos	Mexico	4
Wilton Sampaio	Brazil	4
Anthony Taylor	England	2
Jesus Valenzuela	Venezuela	2

Who will be selected to officiate the World Cup final?

FIFA will select from one of the officials above to officiate the 2022 World Cup final. However, there are a number of restrictions we must keep in mind, which FIFA uses to ensure there can be no real or perceived bias on the part of the match official

The only official FIFA regulation regarding referee assignments states that the official “shall not come from a member association that is represented by a team playing in the group or match in question.”

There are no officials on the final list of 12 that are from the nations remaining in the tournament. However, American referee Ismael Elfath was born in Casablanca, Morocco and therefore would be ineligible to officiate the final should Morocco advance.

FIFA has also efforted to work around unofficial barriers to allow for as little room for perceived bias. Most notably, they often look to avoid having referees work World Cup matches with teams from their own confederation or region.

Often, this is impossible with regards to European nations due to the vast number of participants (remember, FIFA rules regarding teams from confederations at the World Cup draw apply to all continents except Europe for the same reason), but for other continents and regions, they do their best.

This would mean that the three South American officials could possibly see their names out of the running with Argentina in the final, while Morocco beating France would potentially see the Qatar, Algeria, and UAE officials on the outside looking in.

Additionally, Daniele Orsato and Cesar Ramos have been selected to officiate semifinal matches and therefore are unlikely to be selected for the final, although that is also not an official rule and could be circumvented. In that same vein, Jesus Valenzuela and Mohammed Abdulah Hassan were selected as fourth officials for the two semifinal matches, and therefore would also be unlikely to work again for the final.

If Orsato was selected to officiate the World Cup final, he would become just the third official to take charge of the opening match and the final at a World Cup, including 2018 referee Nestor Pitana.

Past World Cup final referees

The first man to officiate a World Cup final was Belgian official John Langenus in 1930 when Uruguay topped Argentina 2-1 at home in the first World Cup tournament.

England have had the most World Cup final officials with four, while Italy has had three. Nobody has ever officiated two men’s World Cup finals.

* Team won on penalties

Year	Official	Country	Match
2018	Nestor Pitana	Argentina	France 4, Croatia 2
2014	Nicola Rizzoli	Italy	Germany 1, Argentina 0
2010	Howard Webb	England	Spain 1, Netherlands 0
2006	Horacio Elizondo	Argentina	Italy 1*, France 1
2002	Pierluigi Collina	Italy	Brazil 2, Germany 0
1998	Said Belqola	Morocco	France 3, Brazil 0
1994	Sandor Puhl	Hungary	Brazil 0*, Italy 0
1990	Edgardo Mendez	Mexico	W. Germany 1, Argentina 0
1986	Romualdo Arppi Filho	Brazil	Argentina 3, W. Germany 2
1982	Arnaldo Cezar Coelho	Brazil	Italy 3, W. Germany 1
1978	Sergio Gonella	Italy	Argentina 3, Netherlands 1
1974	Jack Taylor	England	W. Germany 2, Netherlands 1
1970	Rudi Glockner	E. Germany	Brazil 4, Italy 1
1966	Gottfried Dienst	Switzerland	England 4, W. Germany 2
1962	Nikolay Latyshev	Soviet Union	Brazil 3, Czechoslovakia 1
1958	Maurice Guigue	France	Brazil 5, Sweden 2
1954	William Ling	England	W. Germany 3, Hungary 2
1950	George Reader	England	Uruguay 2, Brazil 1
1938	Georges Capdeville	France	Italy 4, Hungary 2
1934	Ivan Eklind	Sweden	Italy 2, Czechoslovakia 0
1930	John Langenus	Belgium	Uruguay 4, Argentina 2