Referee Victor Gomes has been included on FIFA’s shortlist and invited to a seminar for elite officials next month as the first step towards making the panel for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. He will travel to Doha, Qatar, from 14 to 17 February 2019, along with another five African referees for fitness tests, as well as theoretical sessions and practice with a VAR (video assistant referee) simulator. This seminar falls under FIFA’s preparations for their upcoming football competitions and will be split into two groups. The first group which will consist of CAF, CONCACAF and CONMEBOL, will attend the seminar from 14 to 17 February 2019, while AFC, OFC and UEFA referees’ seminar will take place from 25 February to 1 March 2019.
The 2017/18 PSL Referee of the Season is the only South African to have been selected in the country to form part of the six African referees that are to represent CAF in this upcoming workshop. Other fellow African match officials to attend this workshop alongside Gomes include Mustapha Ghorbal (Algeria), Redouane Jiyed (Morocco), Maguette Ndiaye (Senegal), Ndala Ngambo (DR Congo) and Sadok Selmi (Tunisia). Gomes’s invitation to the course gives him a good chance to make the World Cup‚ even though they are still just under four years away. If he does get to officiate in 2022, he will follow in the footsteps of Ian McLeod‚ in France 1998‚ and Jerome Damon at home in 2010 as the only South Africans to handle matches at the World Cup. Daniel Bennett made the reserve list for the 2014 tournament in Brazil. The 36-year-old Gomes is already on the Confederation of African Football’s (CAF) elite list and handled last year’s CAF Confederation Cup final. He is expected to have a good chance to go all the way at the next Nations Cup and referee the final. The elite seminar does not include assistant referees. Zakhele Siwela was on the panel in Russia last year and would be expected to return again in Qatar in 2022.
