The Fifa Referees Committee has named provisional list of 38 referees from which the definitive list of centre referees for the 2010 Fifa World Cup in South Africa will be chosen.
Yet again no Cecafa member country referee is named among the five from Africa.

Mohamed Benouza (Algeria), Coffi Codjia (Benin), Koman Coulibary (Mali), Jerome Damon (South Africa) and Eddy Maillet (Seychelles) are the referees.

Uefa has 14, Oceania 2, South America 7, Central America 5 and Asia 5.

Fifa Vice-President Angel Maria Villar Llona chaired the Referees Committee meeting which selected 38 referees who have attended various seminars organised by Fifa and officiated at Fifa competitions since the process began at the end of 2006.

The criteria applied for the selection included technical, physical, medical and psychological tests, as well as the referees’ performances in international matches. The same process will be used when making the final selection, which will take place in early 2010.

The CECAFA bloc is the oldest football (soccer) federation in Africa which includes national associations from the East and Central Africa (Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Sudan, Ethiopia, Eritrea, Zanzibar, Somalia, Rwanda, Burundi and Djibouti).

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