SA referee headed to junior World Cup

South African referee Alfred ‘Jelly’ Chavani has been named on the panel for the Under-17 World Cup in Qatar later this year, a further step in getting closer to the World Cup itself.

Chavani, who only turned 30 in January, was named by Fifa to a panel of 27 referees and 54 assistant referees for the tournament from November 3 to 27.

He is one of four African referees for the finals.

“We have selected a group of match officials who will benefit from this new experience and have the potential to officiate at Fifa competitions in the future. This is in line with our objective of developing a new generation of highly qualified referees,” said Fifa Director of Refereeing Massimo Busacca.

Chavani will use Football Video Support (FVS) for the first time after it was successfully trialled last year at the Women’s U-20 World Cup in Colombia and the Women’s U-17 World Cup in the Dominican Republic. This year, it has already been confirmed that it will be used at the U-20 World Cup in Chile and the U-17 Women’s World Cup in Morocco, in addition to the U-17 tournament in Qatar.

FVS was developed as an alternative, cost-effective way of using technology to support match officials. Unlike the video assistant referee (VAR) system, FVS does not involve dedicated video match officials, and therefore not all match-changing incidents are checked.

Instead, the onus falls on the respective head coaches, who are allowed to make a limited number of review requests per game when they feel that there has been a clear and obvious error in relation to a goal, a penalty decision, a direct-red-card incident or a case of mistaken identity. Players can also recommend that their coaches request a review.

Chavani has been in East Africa this month, officiating at the Chan tournament in Kenya, Tanzania and Uganda.