“There are some new faces in the panel. We expect the FIFA panel Referees to further work hard and perform well at the highest level to make the country proud. AIFF will extend them every help to enable them to grow even further,” said Col. Goutam Kar (retd.), Director of Referees, AIFF.
“Indian Referees have been outstanding in International competitions which includes AFC competitions ranging from World Cup Qualifiers, AFC Champions League matches, AFC Cup matches and even AFC Asian Cup UAE 2019 qualification matches,” he stated.
“The most notable feature stays the rise of Women Referees in the FIFA panel and it highlights our endeavours to improve the standard of Refereeing in our Country,” he added. “It highlights that more and more Women are keen on taking up Refereeing as a profession in India and this will only further encourage others girls to take it up,” he felt.
Significantly, a year back in 2016, Uvena Fernandes became the first Indian Woman Assistant Referee ever to officiate in a FIFA World Cup final when she officiated in the final between Japan and DPR Korea in the 2016 FIFA U-17 Women’s World Cup in Jordan.
The list of the sixteen approved officials follows below:
REFEREES (MEN): Pranjal Banerjee, Rowan Arumughan, Srikrishna Ramaswamy, Tejas Nagvenkar, Venkatesh Ramachandran, Muringothumalil Bhaskaran Santosh Kumar.
ASSISTANT REFEREES (MEN): Tony Joseph Luis, Asit Kumar Sarkar, Kennedy Sapam, Arun Pillai, Samar Pal, Antony Abraham, Sumanta Dutta.
REFEREES (WOMEN): Ranjita Devi Tekcham.
ASSISTANT REFEREES (WOMEN): Uvena Fernandes, Riiohlang Dhar.