Publications
Partners
Johannesburg - World football governing body FIFA has announced that Ravshan Irmatov will referee the World Cup semi-final between Uruguay and the Netherlands on Tuesday, with Viktor Kassai in charge of the semi-final between Germany and Spain the following day.
It will be the fifth match of the tournament for Irmatov, a 32- year-old Uzbek school football instructor, who became the youngest man since 1934 to referee the opening match of a FIFA World Cup when South Africa played Mexico on June 11.
He also officiated the quarter-final between Argentina and Germany and took charge of the FIFA Club World Cup final in 2008. He refereed his first international in March 2004.
Kassai, a 35-year-old Hungarian sales manager, has already refereed three matches at the current World Cup and was at the whistle for the first leg of the South Africa 2010 play-off between Bahrain and New Zealand. His first international was in August 2004.
Of the eight referees available for the final on July 11, Ireland's largest bookmaker, Paddy Power, said highly respected Englishman Howard Webb was the odds-on favourite to get the nod.
But it has been speculated that Webb would be ruled out if Uruguay reach the final because he would be under undue pressure and scrutiny.
Uruguayan officials failed to see that a shot by England's Frank Lampard crossed the line in the team's 4-1 round of 16 defeat to Germany.
