Loreto Toloza will no longer appear in the 2023 FIFA Women's World Cup that currently takes place in Australia and New Zealand. The assistant referee was part of the Chilean team, headed by referee María Carvajal and completed by her other assistant, Leslie Vasquez. As of this week, she is facing one of the most critical controversies in the Chilean refereeing: Toloza and her colleague Cindy Nahuelcoy are accused of being favored by an alleged relationship with Julio Bascunan, a member of the Referees Committee, and they even tried to stain the highest refereeing authority in Chile: Roberto Tobar.
The plot, which included a mass email, led to an investigation after which the ANFP Disciplinary Committee applied 40 matches of suspension to those responsible. FIFA acted accordingly with the ruling of the Chilean sports court, of which it was duly informed. The signal was eloquent: Toloza does not appear on the referee team for the match between South Africa and Italy, which will be played this Wednesday. The match will be refereed by Carvajal with Vasquez as the first assistant, while the second assistant will be the Ecuadorian Monica Aboya. Strictly speaking, Toloza will no longer appear on any appointments. She was excluded from the competition.
Toloza assumed in advance that the Women’s World Cup adventure would not be comfortable, since the concept of a refereeing team with Vasquez was already extremely difficult. Communication between the two assistants is absolutely cut off. They have not spoken since the conflict broke out. There is also no communication between Vasquez and Nahuelcoy, the other referee involved in the operation. The decision adopted by FIFA only managed to deepen the drama that she began to experience as soon as she was sentenced by the court presided over by Exequiel Segall, after the conclusions of the investigation led by the ANFP Compliance Officer, Miguel Angel Valdes. In Australia, Toloza was literally adrift: she will not be considered further in the tournament, although she is still there and does not know when she will be sent back to Chile. The sanctioned referee is not having a good time. Her days are spent locked in her room, without contact with anyone. There has been no communication with her from Chile either to find out her state of mind or the conditions of her return. If, from the mental point of view, Toloza is already devastated enough, the other effect suffered by the referee is economic. Each match official selected for the tournament that takes place in Australia and New Zealand earns 10,000USD. To this guaranteed income it is added 6,000USD, which are the fees that the referees receive for each game in which they participate. Toloza, according to the initial calculations, based on technical arguments, would have aspired to at least two matches. As a result of the sanction, in addition to the obvious damage to her professional image, she will only receive one match fee. Both Toloza and Nahuelcoy can appeal the first instance ruling in the Second Chamber of the Disciplinary Committee.
Source: La Tercera
