Referees Association of Ghana [RAG] Chairman Alex Kortey has said his outfit had no perfect candidate to present to FIFA for the Russia 2018 world Cup after veteran referee Joseph Odartei Lamptey’s ban.
No Ghanaian referee was named in a 32 man list released by FIFA over the weekend for the world’s biggest tournament.
And according to him, suspended Joseph Lamptey was the only Ghanaian referee who had been groomed presently to represent Ghana at both CAF and the world’s football governing body’s organized competitions only to be handed a life time ban having performed poorly in a world cup qualifier match between South Africa and Senegal.
Speaking on Kumasi based Abusua FM, the retired referee indicated that the country had no ‘well groomed candidate to present to FIFA for next year’s global showpiece in Russia.
He says’’ We are worried that there is no Ghanaian referee in the list announced by FIFA for the Russia 2018 World Cup, it is quite unfortunate because we had referee Joseph Lamptey who had been groomed by both CAF and FIFA to represent the country at the highest level until he was handed life-time ban by FIFA’’.
He continued ‘’Since Lamptey has been banned we don’t have any other referee to be presented to FIFA for now so we have to sit down and work something out by training others to fill the gab hopefully 2022 will get someone to represent the country’’.
FIFA’s Disciplinary Committee indicted the Ghanaian referee for manipulating the 2018 World Cup qualifier between South Africa and Senegal played last November.
Below is a list of the referees, countries they represent and year of birth.
AFC
- Fahad Al Mirdasi (KSA, 1985)
- Alireza Faghani (IRN, 1978)
- Ravshan Irmatov (UZB, 1977)
- Abdulla Mohamed (EAU, 1978)
- Ryuji Sato (JPN, 1977)
- Nawaf Shukralla (BHR, 1976)
CAF
- Mehdi Abid Charef (ALG, 1980)
- Malang Diedhiou (SEN, 1973)
- Bakary Gassama (GAM, 1979)
- Ghead Grisha (EGY, 1976)
- Janny Sikazwe (ZAM, 1979)
- Bamlak Tessema (ETH, 1980)
CONCACAF
- Joel Aguilar (SLV, 1975)
- Mark Geiger (USA, 1974)
- Jair Marrufo (USA, 1977)
- Ricardo Montero (CRC, 1986)
- John Pitti (PAN, 1978)
- Cesar Ramos (MEX, 1983)
CONMEBOL
- Julio Bascunan (CHI, 1978)
- Enrique Caceres (PAR, 1974)
- Andres Cunha (URU, 1976)
- Nestor Pitana (ARG, 1975)
- Sandro Ricci (BRA, 1974)
- Wilmar Roldan (COL, 1980)
OFC
- Matthew Conger (NZL, 1978)
- Norbert Hauata (TAH, 1979)
UEFA
- Felix Brych (GER, 1975)
- Cuneyt Cakir (TUR, 1976)
- Sergei Karasev (RUS, 1979)
- Bjorn Kuipers (NED, 1973)
- Antonio Mateu Lahoz (ESP, 1977)
- Szymon Marciniak (POL, 1981)
- Milorad Mazic (SRB, 1973)
- Gianluca Rocchi (ITA, 1973)
- Damir Skomina (SVN, 1976)
- Clement Turpin (FRA, 1982)
