Ismail Elfath (; born March 3, 1982) is a Moroccan-born

American American(s) may refer to: * American, something of, from, or related to the United States of America, commonly known as the "United States" or "America" ** Americans, citizens and nationals of the United States of America ** American ancestry, p ...

soccer Association football, more commonly known as football or soccer, is a team sport played between two teams of 11 Football player, players who almost exclusively use their feet to propel a Ball (association football), ball around a rectangular f ...

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 title ...

for the

Professional Referee Organization Professional Referee Organization (PRO) is the organization responsible for managing the referee and assistant referee program in professional soccer leagues in the United States and Canada, working alongside the United States Soccer Federatio ...

. He has been a referee in

Major League Soccer Major League Soccer (MLS) is a professional Association football, soccer league in North America and the highest level of the United States soccer league system. It comprises 30 teams, with 27 in the United States and 3 in Canada, and is sanc ...

since 2012 and a

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 ...

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 The University of Texas at Austin (UT Austin, UT, or Texas) is a public university, public research university in Austin, Texas, United States. Founded in 1883, it is the flagship institution of the University of Texas System. With 53,082 stud ...

with a degree in mechanical engineering in 2006. As of 2022, Elfath resides in

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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 New York Red Bulls II is an American professional Association football, soccer team based in Montclair, New Jersey. They are the reserve team of the New York Red Bulls and play in MLS Next Pro, the third tier in the American soccer pyramid. Hi ...

and

Orlando City B Orlando City B (or OCB for short) is an American soccer club that began play in 2016 and currently plays in MLS Next Pro. Owned by Orlando City SC and based at the Orlando City training facility in Kissimmee, the club plays its home games at ...

where the worldwide first on-field

Video Assistant Referee The video assistant referee (VAR) is a Assistant referee (association football), match official in association football who assists the referee by reviewing decisions using video footage and providing advice to the referee based on those revi ...

review took place as the system was being tested in

USL USL may refer to: Arts and entertainment * Underground Sound of Lisbon, a Portuguese dance music project * Urban Strawberry Lunch, a band from Liverpool Companies * United Spirits Limited, India * Former United States Lines shipping company C ...

. 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 a ...

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 Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the List of European countries by area, second-largest country in Europe after Russia, which Russia–Ukraine border, borders it to the east and northeast. Ukraine also borders Belarus to the nor ...

won 3-1 over

South Korea South Korea, officially the Republic of Korea (ROK), is a country in East Asia. It constitutes the southern half of the Korea, Korean Peninsula and borders North Korea along the Korean Demilitarized Zone, with the Yellow Sea to the west and t ...

. 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 association football, soccer championship of the North, Central American, and Caribbean region organized by CONCACAF. The tournament was p ...

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 officially branded as were an international multi-sport event that was held from 23 July to 8 August 2021 in Tokyo, Japan, with some of the preliminary sporting events beginning on 21 July 2021. Tokyo ...

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

CONCACAF The Confederation of North, Central America and Caribbean Association Football, abbreviated as CONCACAF ( ; typeset for branding purposes since 2018 as Concacaf), is one of FIFA's six continental governing bodies for association football. Its 4 ...

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 ass ...

held in

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from January 9 to February 6, 2022. In the

2022 FIFA World Cup The 2022 FIFA World Cup was the 22nd FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for national football teams organized by FIFA. It took place in Qatar from 20 November to 18 December 2022, after the country was awarded the hosting ri ...

Qatar Qatar, officially the State of Qatar, is a country in West Asia. It occupies the Geography of Qatar, Qatar Peninsula on the northeastern coast of the Arabian Peninsula in the Middle East; it shares Qatar–Saudi Arabia border, its sole land b ...

, Elfath refereed two group stage games, the

Round of 16 A single-elimination knockout, or sudden-death tournament is a type of elimination tournament where the loser of a match-up is immediately eliminated from the tournament. Each winner will play another in the next round, until the final match-up, w ...

match between

Japan Japan is an island country in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean off the northeast coast of the Asia, Asian mainland, it is bordered on the west by the Sea of Japan and extends from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea ...

and

Croatia Croatia, officially the Republic of Croatia, is a country in Central Europe, Central and Southeast Europe, on the coast of the Adriatic Sea. It borders Slovenia to the northwest, Hungary to the northeast, Serbia to the east, Bosnia and Herze ...

, 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 Cup referees CONCACAF Gold Cup referees Major League Soccer referees American soccer referees American people of Moroccan descent 2022 FIFA World Cup referees 2024 Copa América referees Moroccan emigrants to the United States

Early life

Career

See also

References

External links