As 48 nations compete for World Cup glory, another group has followed an equally demanding path to football’s biggest stage: the referees.
For this tournament, FIFA selected 52 referees, 88 assistant referees and 30 video assistant referees (VARs), forming a 170-member officiating team — the largest in World Cup history. The expanded format features 48 teams and 104 matches.
Officials represent 50 FIFA member associations across all confederations, including eight from the United States. Six women are also among the selected officials, following FIFA’s decision to introduce female referees at the previous World Cup in Qatar.
The spotlight on refereeing has grown in unexpected ways. A Somali referee scheduled for a high-profile assignment was denied entry into the United States over “vetting concerns.” The opening match saw a record three red cards. In China, fans have rallied behind the country’s only referee at the tournament after the national team failed to qualify.
“It was my first World Cup game — and South Korea’s first World Cup match at home too. We had 50,000 spectators all in red jerseys. The noise was incredible,” said Leif Lindberg, one of the assistant referees for the 2002 World Cup final between Brazil and Germany, recalling his debut on June 4, 2002.
“Every one of us was dreaming about officiating at the World Cup.”
But turning that dream into reality requires far more than fitness and consistency. For many referees, balancing officiating with full-time work comes at a significant personal cost.
“Most referees have been through at least one divorce,” said Lindberg, who is now retired and on his second marriage. “Many sacrifice family life in one way or another.”
How referees are selected
According to FIFA, the selection process for this World Cup began immediately after Qatar 2022.
Candidates were required to attend seminars, pass fitness assessments and demonstrate prior FIFA tournament experience. Their performances in domestic and international competitions have been monitored over the past three years, before a final committee confirmed the list.
“In every major match leading up to the World Cup, there are one or two observers,” former assistant referee Renato Faverani told CNN Sports, explaining that elite referees are typically assigned as fixed teams and evaluated collectively across international fixtures.
“Afterwards, we receive an evaluation, which is then compared across all referee teams,” said the Italian, who officiated four matches at the 2014 World Cup, including the final between Germany and Argentina.
Even being in contention is a major achievement, as only officials regularly working at the highest level are considered. Before his World Cup appointment, Faverani had already built an extensive résumé in elite competitions, including the UEFA Champions League — where he officiated the 2013 final — the European Championship, and Italy’s Serie A.
Once selected for the World Cup, referees are assigned matches three to four days in advance as the tournament progresses, with appointments based on form. FIFA also prohibits officials from overseeing games involving their home country to avoid conflicts of interest, meaning there is no fixed shortlist for knockout-stage matches.
“It was a very special moment to follow our national team and hope they would lose,” Sweden’s Lindberg recalled. “If they had reached the semi-finals, I would have had to go home.”
“Sweden went out in the round of 16 in very unlucky circumstances, but it was very lucky for me.”
The call-up to the final
So how do referees find out they’ve been selected for the World Cup final?
The moment, by all accounts, is overwhelming.
Returning from a training session near his hotel, Faverani arrived to find all the officials gathered in a large hall. At the front stood FIFA president Sepp Blatter, who unfolded a sheet of paper and began reading.
“The referees for the World Cup final are: Mr…” Blatter said, trailing off.
A few tense seconds followed before Faverani’s name was finally called. Around him, colleagues and senior officials — including England’s Howard Webb, referee of the 2010 World Cup final in South Africa — moved in to congratulate him.
“For two or three hours, it was the best moment,” Faverani recalled. “Then the pressure and responsibility set in. You just hope the match comes quickly because it’s so intense.”
As the excitement settled, the real preparation began.
On and off the pitch
What fans often don’t see is that the work starts days before kickoff — and knowing the Laws of the Game is only the beginning. Alongside daily fitness sessions, including long runs and gym work, referees attend lectures and study in detail the teams they are assigned to officiate.
“It is vital to understand a team’s defensive tactics and players’ characteristics,” Faverani said. He would spend hours reviewing footage of upcoming teams and speaking with colleagues who had already handled those matches, looking for insights and trying to avoid repeating mistakes.
One of the key duties of an assistant referee is to judge offside decisions, as well as signal fouls and misconduct. Understanding which players are more likely to react or engage in heated exchanges helped Faverani stay composed — sometimes even allowing him a brief smile when tensions rose on the pitch.
A key test came during the 2013 World Cup playoff between Portugal and Sweden — a clash featuring two iconic forwards, Cristiano Ronaldo and the now-retired Zlatan Ibrahimović, both known for their strong personalities and distinctive styles of play.
Faverani served as assistant referee that night. He says reading attacking movements and defensive lines over time helped him better anticipate how play would unfold.
Despite their proximity to the game’s biggest stars, referees are trained to remain detached from reputation and focus solely on what happens on the pitch. “When the whistle blows, it’s just 11 against 11, nothing more,” he added.
For all the debate surrounding Video Assistant Referee (VAR), the technology was only introduced in 2018. Before then, decisions were made in real time by the naked eye — a standard that still largely applies today, even with the option of review. At times, those split-second calls could prove decisive.
One particularly difficult moment from the 2014 World Cup final still stays with him. As the goalless first half drew to a close under the bright Rio de Janeiro sun at the Maracanã Stadium, both sides remained locked in a tense battle for the breakthrough when Germany won a corner.
The ball was delivered into a crowded Argentina penalty area, where Benedikt Höwedes rose above the pack and headed towards goal. His effort struck the post and rebounded into play, falling to Thomas Müller. However, the German forward was in an offside position amid the scramble — by Faverani’s estimate, by less than 10 centimetres (around four inches).
“I was focused, so I raised the flag,” he said excitedly. The so-called “Robo Assistant Referee,” as one German newspaper later dubbed him, turned out to be correct.
The cost of three decades
For Faverani and Lindberg, the journey from amateur football to the World Cup took around 30 years — a long road marked by sacrifice, especially time away from family.
The scale of the challenge is also striking. Of the 3,725 officials on FIFA’s international list, only about 4.5% make it to a World Cup in North America this summer, with just a select few ever entrusted with officiating the final. Behind them are hundreds of thousands who never reach the global stage.
Refereeing also offers little stability. Assignments depend on fixtures and often last only a few hours, meaning most officials must hold down regular jobs alongside their careers in football.
“At the time, you had a full-time job, matches, and training. You often had to choose, and many ended up prioritising refereeing over family, paying the price later,” Lindberg said, reflecting on his divorce.
He told CNN that his situation was unusual, and that it made his intense training schedule possible.
“I was running my own company, so I could leave at three in the afternoon and be home at a normal time. That was a huge advantage for me.”
The long hours devoted to maintaining match fitness highlight another challenge referees face: ageing bodies. Unlike players, who are often 10 to 20 years younger, referees must push themselves even harder just to keep up with the pace of the game.
“Of course, players train across a wide range of areas that we don’t need,” he said. “But we actually do more physical training than they do because of age.”
For Faverani, the demands also came with a personal trade-off. Refereeing at the highest level never replaced his full-time job as a credit manager; instead, it added another layer of responsibility. During the season, he travelled constantly for midweek Champions League fixtures and weekend Serie A matches, while keeping up with work through phone calls and emails.
“It is a passion for me,” he said. “But I now realise how much time I took away from my family — my wife, my daughters, my mother.”
Boos and abuse
Technology has transformed football, placing referees’ split-second decisions under far greater scrutiny. At the same time, online abuse from frustrated fans — including some involved in betting — has become increasingly common.
That hostility is starting to take a toll. Daniele Curcio, president of Referee Abroad, a non-profit that promotes refereeing globally, says declining trust in officials is contributing to fewer people staying in the profession.
“It is something every federation in the world now has to deal with,” he told CNN Sports. “There needs to be a cultural change.”
“Referees can get decisions wrong, just as players can miss a penalty. But you still have to trust them and their integrity,” he said.
Despite the criticism and the often unseen effort behind the job, both Lindberg and Faverani agree it remains deeply rewarding for those who stay the course.
“It’s a great job. It develops you not only as an athlete, but as a person,” Daniele said. “It gives you lifelong soft skills you wouldn’t pick up anywhere else.”