Ismail Elfath ( ar, اسماعيل الفتح; born March 3, 1982) is a Moroccan-born American

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 players who primarily use their feet to propel the ball around a rectangular field called a pitch. The objective of the game is ...

referee A referee is an official, in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The official tasked with this job may be known by a variety of other titl ...

for the Professional Referee Organization. He has been a referee in

Major League Soccer Major League Soccer (MLS) is a men's professional soccer league sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation, which represents the sport's highest level in the United States. The league comprises 29 teams—26 in the U.S. and 3 in Canada ...

since 2012 and a

FIFA FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' ( French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...

listed referee since 2016.

Early life

Elfath immigrated to the United States in 2001 at the age of 18 after winning a diversity visa lottery. Elfath graduated from the University of Texas at Austin with a degree in mechanical engineering in 2006. As of 2022, Elfath resides in Austin, Texas.

Career

Elfath was first a Fourth official in MLS in 2011 and made his MLS refereeing debut in 2012. Elfath became a FIFA listed official in 2016. Elfath was the referee during an August 2016 match between New York Red Bulls II and Orlando City B where the worldwide first on-field Video Assistant Referee review took place as the system was being tested in USL. On March 26, 2019, Elfath was selected to referee the

2019 FIFA U-20 World Cup The 2019 FIFA U-20 World Cup was the 22nd edition of the FIFA U-20 World Cup, the biennial international men's youth football championship contested by the under-20 national teams of the member associations of FIFA, since its inception in 1977 ...

in Poland. Elfath, along with American assistant referees Corey Parker and Kyle Atkins, was selected by FIFA to officiate the final of the tournament, which Ukraine won 2-1 over South Korea. On May 17, 2019, Elfath was appointed to officiate in the

2019 CONCACAF Gold Cup The 2019 CONCACAF Gold Cup was the 15th edition of the CONCACAF Gold Cup, the biennial international men's soccer championship of the North, Central American, and Caribbean region organized by CONCACAF. The tournament was primarily hosted in th ...

in the United States following his participation in the 2019 FIFA U-20 World Cup. Later that year Elfath took charge of the semi-final match at the FIFA Qatar 2019 Club World Cup. Elfath was named the MLS Referee of the Year for the first time in his career on November 18, 2020. He received the honor for a second time two years later on October 14, 2022. In July 2021, Elfath took charge of three matches at the Tokyo

2020 Olympics The , officially the and also known as , was an international multi-sport event held from 23 July to 8 August 2021 in Tokyo, Japan, with some preliminary events that began on 21 July. Tokyo was selected as the host city during the 1 ...

, including a quarter -final match between host nation Japan and New Zealand. Elfath was chosen as one of the two referees from CONCACAF for the

2021 Africa Cup of Nations The 2021 Africa Cup of Nations (also referred to as AFCON 2021 or CAN 2021), known as the TotalEnergies 2021 Africa Cup of Nations for sponsorship reasons, was the 33rd edition of the Africa Cup of Nations, the biennial international men's foo ...

held in Cameroon from January 9 to February 6, 2022. In the

2022 FIFA World Cup The 2022 FIFA World Cup is an international association football, football tournament contested by the men's national teams of FIFA's member associations. The 22nd FIFA World Cup is taking place in Qatar from 20 November to 18 December 2022 ...

in Qatar, Elfath refereed two group stage games,the Round of 16 match between

Japan Japan ( ja, 日本, or , and formally , ''Nihonkoku'') is an island country in East Asia. It is situated in the northwest Pacific Ocean, and is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan, while extending from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north ...

and Croatia, and was the fourth official for the Final between Argentina and France.

References

External links

*
archive
{{DEFAULTSORT:Elfath, Ismail 1982 births Living people CONCACAF Champions League referees CONCACAF Gold Cup referees Major League Soccer referees American soccer referees American people of Moroccan descent 2022 FIFA World Cup referees FIFA World Cup referees Moroccan emigrants to the United States

Early life

Career

See also

References

External links