Jair Marrufo (born June 7, 1977) is an American

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 ...

. 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 2002 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 ...

referee from 2007 to 2022.

Career

Marrufo was 2008 MLS Referee of the Year. Marrufo was suspended by MLS for the remainder of the 2009 MLS season as of September 1, 2009, for poor performance over the course of the season, and subsequently on February 5, 2010, Marrufo was removed from the 2010 World Cup referee list. It was announced in 2013 that Marrufo would be a member of the newly formed

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 ...

, the body responsible for refereeing appointments among the United States and Canada's top soccer leagues. On July 8, 2014, Marrufo was assigned to the

2014 MLS All-Star Game The 2014 AT&T Major League Soccer All-Star Game was the 19th annual Major League Soccer All-Star Game. It took place on August 6, 2014 at Providence Park, the home of MLS club Portland Timbers. The game was televised live on ESPN2 and UniMás i ...

, to be played on August 6 at

Providence Park Providence Park (formerly Jeld-Wen Field; PGE Park; Civic Stadium; originally Multnomah Stadium; and from 1893 until the stadium was built, Multnomah Field) is an outdoor soccer venue located in the Goose Hollow neighborhood of Portland, Oregon ...

between an MLS All-Star team and

Bayern Munich Fußball-Club Bayern München e. V. (FCB, ), commonly known as Bayern Munich (), FC Bayern () or simply Bayern, is a German professional sports club based in Munich, Bavaria. They are most known for their men's professional football team, ...

. He also officiated a 2017 International Champions Cup

match A match is a tool for starting a fire. Typically, matches are made of small wooden sticks or stiff paper. One end is coated with a material that can be ignited by friction generated by striking the match against a suitable surface. Wooden matc ...

between

Barcelona Barcelona ( ; ; ) is a city on the northeastern coast of Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second-most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within c ...

and

Real Madrid Real Madrid Club de Fútbol (), commonly referred to as Real Madrid, is a Spanish professional Football club (association football), football club based in Madrid. The club competes in La Liga, th ...

on 29 July 2017, after which he was accused by Barcelona midfielder

Ivan Rakitić Ivan Rakitić (; born 10 March 1988) is a Croatian professional footballer who plays as a midfielder for HNL club Hajduk Split. Rakitić started his professional career at Basel and spent two seasons with them before he was signed by Schalke ...

of insulting him. Marrufo was selected to officiate in 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 ...

, and his first appointment was the

Group G Group G may refer to: * A set of international motor racing regulations used in touring car racing Touring car racing is a motorsport road racing competition that uses race-prepared touring cars. It has both similarities to and significant dif ...

match between Belgium and Tunisia. Marrufo refereed the

2018 FIFA Club World Cup final The 2018 FIFA Club World Cup final was the final match of the 2018 FIFA Club World Cup, an international club association football tournament hosted by the United Arab Emirates. It was the 15th final of the FIFA Club World Cup, a FIFA-organised t ...

between

and

Al Ain Al Ain () is a city in the Emirate of Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, and the seat of the administrative division of the Al Ain Region. The city is Oman–United Arab Emirates border, bordered to the east by the Omani town of Al-Buraimi. Al A ...

. He refereed the second leg of the 2019 CONCACAF Champions League final between

Monterrey Monterrey (, , abbreviated as MtY) is the capital and largest city of the northeastern Mexican state of Nuevo León. It is the ninth-largest city and the second largest metropolitan area, after Greater Mexico City. Located at the foothills of th ...

and Tigres on May 1, 2019. On May 17, 2019, Marrufo was appointed to be a referee for 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.

Personal life

His father, Antonio Marrufo, was a FIFA referee from

Mexico Mexico, officially the United Mexican States, is a country in North America. It is the northernmost country in Latin America, and borders the United States to the north, and Guatemala and Belize to the southeast; while having maritime boundar ...

and served on the Mexican Referee Commission. Jair Marrufo speaks fluent English and Spanish. He is the husband of teacher and UTEP graduate Zinnia Mares Marrufo and they have two children together. He is of Mexican descent.

Honors

* FIFA panel – 2007–2022 * Two Olympic qualifier tournaments * Beijing Olympics – 2008 * MLS Referee of the Year – 2008 * Two U-17 World Cups * MLS Cup Playoffs * Copa Central Americano – 2014 * MLS All-Star Game – 2014 * CONCACAF Gold Cup – 2009, 2011, 2013, 2015 * MLS Cup – 2006, 2015, 2020 * Copa América – 2016 * FIFA World Cup - 2018 * CONCACAF Champions League Final – 2019

Card statistics

References

External links

*
archive
* * * 1977 births Living people American soccer referees American sportspeople of Mexican descent People from El Paso, Texas CONCACAF Champions Cup referees CONCACAF Gold Cup referees Major League Soccer referees North American Soccer League (2011–2017) referees 2018 FIFA World Cup referees Copa América Centenario referees {{US-footy-bio-stub