Group photo of our Qatar World Cup refereeing team, from left to right, Shi Xiang, Maning and Cao Yi. Photo courtesy of the interviewee.
-- Bian Liqun/CNN
"Although the credibility of China's soccer referees has been questioned in recent years, they have proved their strength through unremitting efforts and struggles." In the face of China's three referees selected for the Qatar World Cup referee list, Liu Tiejun, head of the referee department of the CFA, spoke to CNN with great emotion.
The process has been full of challenges and endeavors. Long before the World Cup in Russia, our referee team started the long and arduous journey to the World Cup in Qatar. Physical training, referee theory exams, match video case studies, English proficiency tests ...... Under FIFA's comprehensive scrutiny, referees must be flawless.
Referee Manning revealed that they need to do 2 to 3 hours of intense physical training every day. Before each match, they need to spend a whole day to study the technical and tactical skills of both sides, key players, and so on.
Opportunity always comes to those who are prepared. Our referee team successfully stood out and made it to the final list. They not only do justice to our soccer referees, but also bring a hint of surprise to Chinese soccer in the doldrums.
Reporter's question, "What is the significance of the historic breakthrough that three of our referees have been selected as referees for the World Cup in Qatar?"
Liu Tiejun replied, "the first two selections are single person single position, this time for a referee team, which shows that the overall level of China's referees has been improved, the legal level of the selected referees, the CFA referee training work of the affirmation of the future there will be more of China's referees in the world tournament to exercise and show."
Liu Tiejun said that the selection is enough to prove that the talent and level of our referee team has reached the top in Asia and the world. Mr. Korina, Chairman of the FIFA Referee Committee, when introducing the list of referees for this World Cup, said that the referees selected for the list represent the highest level of refereeing in the world today.
Our referee team officiating a match overseas. Photo courtesy of the interviewee
Reporter's question, "What is the selection process like? What kind of investigation do you have to go through?"
Manning replied, "We first had to go through the AFC's selection process before coming into the view of FIFA's investigation. In the years leading up to the 2018 FIFA World Cup in Russia, the AFC began tracking and investigating young referees across Asia, selecting more than a dozen groups of referees as candidates after the World Cup in Russia.
In late 2018, the AFC identified and reported the first round of candidates for Qatar World Cup referees, which did not include referees who had already officiated at the World Cup in Russia.
By 2019, FIFA began to formally conduct a comprehensive assessment and evaluation of the referees who made the first round of the waiting list through various competitions and training, from which four groups of referees were selected, together with those of the right age who had legally been to the World Cup in Russia, to pick into an eight-group list.
From the beginning of 2020 to the just-concluded 2022 AFC Champions League group stage, FIFA conducted a final round of investigations and evaluations of these eight groups of referees before confirming this final list.
Reporter's question, "What are some of the hurdles that have to be faced during this long investigative cycle?"
Manning replied, "Each round of FIFA's assessment of candidate referees is all-encompassing, including daily physical training monitoring, regular physical testing, refereeing theory exams, match video case analysis, English proficiency exams, and evaluation of tournament enforcement level, which requires candidate referees to not have any shortcomings, slackness, mistakes, and must do their best.
In terms of fitness, for example, we train gruelingly for two to three hours a day.
The standard of fitness test is very high, according to the World Cup referee fitness test standard, in the short distance sprint ability test, each of the six consecutive 40 meter sprint runs must not be longer than 5.8 seconds, and each interval must not be longer than 1 minute.
Interval running test 75 meters fast run in 15 seconds, 25 meters slow run in 15 seconds, 40 consecutive cycles, etc.
In addition, FIFA specifically assigns technical lecturers to track and evaluate every match we referee, which also includes the home league we referee, and requires us to enforce the matches in accordance with FIFA's philosophy and standards, which requires candidate referees to prepare for every match with all their might.
Our referee team will do a lot of pre-match preparation before refereeing each game, studying and analyzing the technical and tactical play of both sides of the game, the characteristics of the players and coaches, the key players, the history of the game team's record, various factors affecting the situation, etc., and the video analysis of the game alone will cost almost a whole day's time.
In fact, soccer referees, like everyone else, will inevitably make mistakes in their life and work, but FIFA has very high requirements for referees, so it is necessary for referees to make fewer mistakes in enforcing matches, not to mention major mistakes.
FIFA arranges such a long investigation period to make a comprehensive evaluation of the candidate referees, to exclude incidental events, and also to require the referees to have a lasting and stable high level of law enforcement competitive status.
This selection process was also affected by the epidemic, which made the road to the World Cup even more difficult for our country's referees. With the need to penalize high-level competitions during the investigation period and the need to take epidemic prevention into consideration, playing abroad for a long period of time puts a great deal of mental and psychological pressure on everyone.
And it was also necessary to maintain physical fitness during the isolation period. After all, the space in the isolation room was limited and there was a lack of practice equipment, but we overcame all the difficulties and always maintained good physical fitness and athleticism.
Our referee team goes overseas to officiate matches. Photo courtesy of the interviewee
Reporter's question, "The epidemic has really added a lot of difficulties, what kind of support did the CFA give you during this selection process?"
Cao Yi said: "In the past few years due to the impact of the epidemic, the CFA has actively promoted referees to actively participate in the online training of FIFA, UEFA and AFC, inviting the top instructors of FIFA to teach the referees of the league in an online way.
Although we are abroad, we will overcome the time difference and actively participate in these online studies, constantly learning the latest legal concepts and knowledge of FIFA.
When we return to China to participate in league enforcement, the CFA will also try to arrange for us to enforce high-level, high-quality matches, and during the national team's training and preparation, we will also be invited to enforce the practice matches, which allows us to maintain a higher state of law enforcement during the period of time we are in the country.
Shi Xiang said: "Epidemic these years, entry and exit visas, round trips and many other work are facing unprecedented trouble, the CFA departments to protect our travel, but also actively coordinate with the AFC, FIFA, the tournament hosting football association to give us to stay in West Asia, local and international trip booking provides a great deal of convenience.
Including a number of our embassies in the West Asia region, we have also received a great deal of support and care during our time abroad enforcing the tournament.
