The FIFA Referees Committee has announced the selected match officials who will officiate at the forthcoming FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup Colombia 2024™, which will take place from 31 August to 22 September. A total of 58 women match officials, including 18 referees, 36 assistant referees and four support referees, will take charge of the matches. “The FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup is the next important milestone in preparing the potential candidates for the FIFA Women’s World Cup Brazil 2027. The tournament will also give us a great opportunity to further trial Football Video Support following the promising tests conducted during the Blue Stars tournament,” said the chairman of the FIFA Referees Committee, Pierluigi Collina.

History will be made in Colombia with the trial of Football Video Support (VS), as FIFA continues to drive the use of technology to help referees. The trial follows numerous requests from member associations for an alternative, cost-effective way to use technology to support match officials. In response to those requests, FIFA has developed VS, which, unlike the video assistant referee system, does not use dedicated video match officials and therefore does not check all match-changing incidents. Instead, the onus falls on the respective head coaches, who will be allowed to make a limited number of review requests per match when they feel that a clear and obvious error has been made in match-changing incidents, such as goals, penalty decisions, direct red-card incidents or cases of mistaken identity. The players can also recommend that their coach request a review. Further information can be found here.

“We look forward to this tournament being held in a football-loving country like Colombia. From a refereeing point of view, the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup will leave an important legacy in the country,” said Massimo Busacca, FIFA’s Director of Refereeing. The full list of appointed match officials for the FIFA U-20 Women’s World Cup Colombia 2024 can be found here.