FIFA has appointed Australian Referee Mark Shield to officiate this country’s 2006 World Cup half slot playoff first leg against Bahrain at the Hasely Crawford Stadium on November 12.
FIFA announced the officials on Wednesday in Zurich. Serving as Shield’s assistants will be Australians Mark Gibson and David Wilson with countryman Christopher Breeze as the fourth official. The referee inspector Carlos Marciel comes from Paraguay, the match commissioner will be Pertti Alaja of Finland and Nicaragua’s Julio Rocha is the Security Officer.
Meantime, FIFA has turned down the request to have the single yellow cards currently being carried by players of the teams wiped out for the playoffs.
FIFA Vice President Jack Warner made the request last week but the FIFA Disciplinary Committee indicated on Wednesday that it would follow through on it. However, any player carrying two yellow cards following the playoff will then go into the 2006 World Cup Finals with a clean slate if his country is a participant.
Marco Villiger, Secretary to the FIFA Disciplinary Committee stated that cards can be cancelled only once in the tournament as has already been the case at the end of the semi –final round of qualification. He added that cancellation of the cards for the playoffs would endanger the fair play of the relevant matches since all yellow cards issued in these two games would not lead to any disciplinary consequences. It was noted that it is the long standing jurisprudence of the FIFA Disciplinary Committee to cancel cautions for the final tournament in order to restore the balance among several teams.
The T&T players currently carrying one yellow card and in danger of missing the second leg on November 16 if another one is received on November 12 are Brent Sancho, Densill Theobald, Dwight Yorke, Kenwyne Jones, Chris Birchall, Aurtis Whitley, Avery John, Marvin Andrews, Carlos Edwards and Cyd Gray.
While the number seems alarming, T&T captain Dwight Yorke said it would not affect his approach to the matches nor that of his teammates. Yorke did in fact go into the last games against Panama and Mexico, knowing that a second caution would rule him out of the following match. T&T picked up only two yellows with Silvio Spann and Cyd Gray on the receiving end in those games.
“It’s not something that you can afford to worry about when it comes to your game,” Yorke told TTFF Media. “I mean you have it in the back of your head but you don’t dwell on it except that maybe you might remind yourself just before the start of the game that you cannot be reckless. The last two games was a situation where I needed to go out and play my game and we all did just that. The fortunate thing is that we are all eligible to play in this next game which is most important at this time. This next game at home is a huge one for us and that’s what we need to concentrate on. I have no doubt that once we can put everything else aside and focus on this one then we can surely get the result that all of Trinidad and Tobago wants,” the Sydney FC man said.
Reports out of Bahrain indicated that the Bahrain players carrying one yellow include Mohammed Hussain, Sayed Mohammed Adnan, Abdullah Al Marzooqi, Mohammed Hubail, Saleh Farhan, Hussain Baba, Mohammed Salmeen, Rashid Al Dossary, Ahmed Hassan, Daij Nasser and Talal Yousef. The official list from FIFA will be released later this week.
FIFA also confirmed the Match officials for November 16 playoff with Bahrain in Manama and a kick off time of 7pm. (12 midday T&T time).
Oscar Ruiz Acosta (Referee, Colombia), Eduardo Botero Walker (Assistant 1, Colombia), Fernando Tamayo (Assistant 2, Ecuador), Eduardo Lopez (Fourth official, Colombia), Jim Hansen (Match Commissioner, Denmark) and Adrian Titcombe (Security Officer, Colombia).