Fahad Al-Mirdasi (; born 16 August 1985) is a Saudi Arabian

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

referee who served as a full international for

FIFA The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (), more commonly known by its acronym FIFA ( ), is the international self-regulatory governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal. It was founded on 21 May 1904 to o ...

from 2011 to 2018, when he was banned for life for

match fixing In organized sports, match fixing (also known as game fixing, race fixing, throwing, rigging, hippodroming, or more generally sports fixing) is the act of playing or officiating a contest with the intention of achieving a predetermined result, v ...

Refereeing career

Al-Mirdasi was one of the referees for the

2015 AFC Asian Cup The 2015 AFC Asian Cup was the 16th edition of the men's AFC Asian Cup, a quadrennial international association football, football tournament organised by the Asian Football Confederation (AFC). It was held in Australia from 9 to 31 January 201 ...

. He officiated four games in the

2015 FIFA U-20 World Cup The 2015 FIFA U-20 World Cup was the twentieth edition of the FIFA U-20 World Cup since its inception in 1977 as the FIFA World Youth Championship. The competition took place for the first time in New Zealand, the third time on Oceanian soil after ...

, including the final game. Al-Mirdasi officiated at the men's football tournament at the

2016 Summer Olympics The 2016 Summer Olympics (), officially the Games of the XXXI Olympiad () and officially branded as Rio 2016, were an international multi-sport event held from 5 to 21 August 2016 in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil, with preliminary events i ...

. He officiated the match between Sweden and Colombia in the group stage, with the game ending with a score of 2–2. In 2017, Al-Mirdasi officiated at the

2017 FIFA Confederations Cup The 2017 FIFA Confederations Cup was the tenth and final edition of the FIFA Confederations Cup, a quadrennial international men's Association football, football tournament organised by FIFA. It was held in Russia, from 17 June to 2 July 2017, ...

. In 2018, the

Saudi Arabian Football Federation The Saudi Arabian Football Federation (SAFF; ) is the association football, football Sport governing body, governing body of Saudi Arabia. Founded in 1956, It's responsibilities include administration of club competitions and national teams. The ...

(SAFF) issued Al-Mirdasi a lifetime ban from officiating based on allegations of match-fixing. Before the ban,

had selected Al-Mirdasi to officiate at the

2018 FIFA World Cup The 2018 FIFA World Cup was the 21st FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for national association football, football teams organized by FIFA. It took place in Russia from 14 June to 15 July 2018, after the country was awarded t ...

, but on 30 May 2018, it was announced that he and his assistants were stood down from participating in the World Cup.

References

1985 births Living people Saudi Arabian football referees Sportspeople from Riyadh People convicted of bribery Sportspeople banned for life Match fixers Football referees at the 2016 Summer Olympics AFC Asian Cup referees {{SaudiArabia-footy-bio-stub