Following the tradition of the Asian Football Confederation (AFC) of assigning referees, referees generally do not enforce the group games in which the national (regional) teams of the member associations to which they belong are playing. Given that our team's opponents in Group B of the 12-team tournament are all from East and Southeast Asia, except for Saudi Arabia, the possibility of our team facing referees from West and Central Asia has increased significantly, which makes it inevitable that they will encounter "difficult opponents" they don't want to face. For example, Hassan from the United Arab Emirates and Qatar's Jassim have entered the 12 strong match referee alternative list. Looking back at the previous Asian Cup, AFC Champions League and other tournaments of law enforcement, our team or the Chinese Super League team in the enforcement of the game in the loss of countless examples.
For our team, there is another "difficult opponent" name always lingers, that is, Iranian referee Fajani. He was the referee of the men's soccer final at the 2016 Rio Olympics. Prior to this, our team in the world competition many times encountered his "care". One of the most impressive matches was the final round of the group stage of the 2019 U23 Asian Cup between our U23 team and Qatar U23 team.
In this match, which concerned the fate of the U23 national football team's exit, Faghani made a number of penalties unfavorable to the host team, including the decision to red-card He Chao, our team's main back-rower. In the end, the U23 national football team went out in disgrace. After the match, the CFA lodged a verbal protest against Fajani's controversial penalties to Hani, the Qatari vice-chairman of the AFC Sanctioning Committee, who was watching the match.
It is worth mentioning that the current AFC Referee Committee is chaired by Du Zhaocai, deputy director of the General Administration of Sport and party secretary of the CFA. Prior to this, Du Zhaocai and Chen Xuyuan, the president of the CFA, had led a delegation of our team to the United Arab Emirates to participate in the remaining three rounds of the 40-team tournament. The fact that our team was able to advance to the Round of 12 with four consecutive victories was, to some extent, due to the impartiality of the referees.
Judging from years of competition in world soccer competitions, the refereeing factor is not the most crucial factor in determining the direction of competition, but it is an element that cannot be ignored all the same. Serious misjudgments, omissions, or obviously biased penalties may turn a team's years of hard work into nothing. Therefore, while actively promoting the participation of outstanding local referees in world matches, the CFA is also paying close attention to the AFC's information on referee assignments for the Top 12 matches. The AFC refereeing committee should also respect the CFA's opinion to a certain extent on the issue of whether or not to assign Faghani to enforce our team's matches.
It is worth noting that, due to the South Korean team and our team is not in the same group, and Thailand, Singapore and other teams do not have the chance to participate in the 12 strong, our team in the 12 strong during the tournament is also likely to meet some "relatively friendly" familiar faces referees. For example, in the Chinese Super League long-term law enforcement of the Korean referee Jin Xikun, Gao Hengjin, as well as is expected to come to China this year, long-term law enforcement of the Chinese Super League of the Singaporean referee Taki, Thailand's famous whistle Sai Wakong may be law enforcement of our team's matches. During the Top 40, in addition to Ko Hyung-jin, the other three people have enforced our team's matches, and the national football team have won.
Undeniably, our team in the 12 strong competition, can not rely on a variety of off-field factors, including "referee", but also need to do a good job of their own training, enhance the hard power.
