Brazilian referees will be officiating the eagerly awaited opening game of this year’s World Cup between Bafana Bafana and Mexico which will start at 9 in the evening, at the Mexico City Stadium, Mexico.
Fifa appointed an experienced Brazilian referee, Wilton Sampaio, to be the one to referee the game which will be watched by over a billion people around the world, assisted by his hosts, Bruno Pires and Bruno Boschilia.
This 43-year-old referee has been working at the Fifa level for years and was one of the referees who played in the World Cup held in Qatar in 2022.
He was on the team of referees who started using Video Assistant Referee (VAR) when this technology was introduced for the first time at the World Cup in Russia in 2018.
Fifa has appointed the most referees in the history of this tournament as this year’s will have included 48 teams for the first time. 52 referees, 88 assistants and 30 VARs were appointed.
This figure was reduced by the withdrawal of the referee from Somalia, Omar Artan, who was denied entry to the United States due to its laws to check people from this East and African country.
When Bafana and Mexico faced each other in the opening game of the 2010 World Cup, the match was managed by the referee from Uzbekistan, Ravshan Irmatov, assisted by his home team, Rafael Ilyasov and Bakhadyr Kochkarov.