A day at World Cup referee training: Chants, VAR feedback and dissecting the Mbappe penalty call

It is just after 8.30am on Wednesday and Pierluigi Collina, microphone in hand, is standing at the front of a large conference room ready to address a sea of pink.

More than 100 referees — all wearing their pink training tops — are sitting in front of him; 30 video assistant referees dialling in from Dallas; and the Italian, who has served as FIFA’s chief refereeing officer since 2017, is ready to deliver his opening remarks.

“Morning, everyone,” he says, which is duly followed by the match officials, in unison, saying it back, almost reminiscent of how children would respond to their headteacher at school.

This 8.30am get-together is a daily occurrence at their Grand Beach Hotel base in South Beach, Miami, and it has the referees on the edge of their seats.

It is where they will find out whether they have been selected to officiate in the next round of group matches at this World Cup. If finding out whether they have a game or not is a surprise, then so is how much they will be paid for working at the tournament.

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Although they receive a base salary, and then match fees which increase as the World Cup progresses, the referees do not know what the initial payment will be until afterwards.

Before Collina reveals the appointments for Germany-Ivory Coast, Ecuador-Curacao, Netherlands-Sweden and Tunisia-Japan, though, there is time to aim a quick joke at Michael Oliver’s expense after he stayed up very late to watch a mate play.

The Premier League referee, sitting a couple of rows in front of The Athletic, takes it well and laughs it off. Collina is then straight to the point. 

He reels off the appointments, which include Oliver, who had to pull out of his first assigned match with a small muscle injury, and fellow Premier League officials Stuart Burt and James Mainwaring. They were handed Saturday’s fixture between the Dutch and Swedes in Houston.

And, while there is competition to be assigned matches, there are also moments of camaraderie. When the appointment for the opening game of the tournament is made, one match official told The Athletic the whole group chants the name of the referee to get the nod, to the tune of Seven Nation Army: “Ohhh Wilton Sampaio!”

The day’s final announcement from Collina comes with a special presentation, as Romania’s Istvan Kovacs is appointed to the Tunisia-Japan match, which will be the 1,000th World Cup finals fixture since the inaugural edition began in 1930.

Collina then unfurls a shirt from a plastic bag, and notices — he retired as a ref in 2005 and is now 66 years old, but still doesn’t miss anything — Kovacs reacts to his name being on the back of it before the Italian can say he has been selected. 

As he holds it up, there is a collective ‘Wow’ in the room, before Kovacs goes up to collect it to a round of applause and plenty of pats on the back.

But no sooner had they sat down than the referees are up again. They shuffle out of the room and head to one of three coaches waiting outside the hotel, where they will be transported — accompanied by a police escort — to Miami Dade College, their training base around 30 minutes away.

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As the referees file out of their coaches, some head straight to the pitch while others take advantage of a nearby restroom. 

In one of the day’s more surreal scenes, Kovacs was applauded out of his trip to the toilet by colleagues who were still happy for him receiving the 1,000th game.

The officials have been making this daily trip to Miami Dade since the beginning of the month, with a ‘Referee Cup’ being created to help them prepare for the World Cup. 

Clubs from the amateur United Premier Soccer League (UPSL) were invited to compete against each other in a tournament between June 2 and 14, with the games being refereed by the World Cup officials.

Still yet to reach the hottest part of the day and fresh off the bus, Oliver, perched on a cooling box full of ice and water, is covering himself in sunblock before joining a group of other referees to begin warming up. 

The training centre is overseen by Javier Santos, himself a former match official, and there are three pitches, all of which serve a specific purpose. On one side, the referees who have returned from a match are going through a recovery session to the sound of Swann Layke’s Silhouettes.

Alongside them are other officials going through a series of functional exercises, including weighted step-ups and mobility exercises.

But the two main pitches are where you get a feel for the sheer level of detail that goes into preparing a referee for a match.

FIFA has a pool of around 60 local players, all of whom perform to a relatively good standard, and they are coached to do so in the same way as any given national team. So, when Oliver and his two assistants head over to that pitch, the two 11-a-side teams are given a series of tactical instructions from a coach that will resemble the Netherlands’ and Sweden’s style of play, and their job is to implement it.

Over the next seven minutes, Oliver and his team officiate the mini-match, and the players are encouraged to give him several decisions to make, be it by diving or fouling an opponent.

As soon as those seven minutes are over, the players are brought back into the centre circle and given a new set of instructions as three other match officials make their way onto the pitch. Oliver and company head to the sideline for an immediate debrief. This, Oliver mentioned, is not something they are accustomed to in other competitions they officiate in.

On the adjoining pitch, another set of local players are instructed on various set-piece routines. The officials overseeing them will be looking to spot any fouls in the penalty area or offsides. 

Under the now-baking Miami heat, one referee, clearly feeling its effects, jokes to The Athletic how one of the first things they do when given a match is check where and when it is, with their fingers crossed for an indoor stadium or, alternatively, a late kick-off.

After around 75 minutes of training, the referees head back to the coaches to return to the hotel in time for their 11.30am debrief session with Collina and Massimo Busacca, his right-hand man and FIFA’s director of refereeing.

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It is in this meeting that the previous day’s key decisions are analysed by Collina, who often throws it back to the observant referees for their opinions.

A big talking point from Tuesday’s slate of group games concerned Alireza Faghani, the Australian match referee, not awarding Kylian Mbappe a penalty following a challenge from Sadio Mane during France’s win against Senegal.

Collina described it as the “most debated decision at the World Cup so far” and challenged the group to “imagine” they are seeing the incident “for the first time”. 

The conversation that took place in FIFA’s VAR hub was then played in full, and there was a debate between the two officials, which ultimately led to Faghani being sent to the monitor to look again and confirm — or change — his decision. Collina praised the decision to alert the on-field referee.

“It is not about what is obvious and not obvious,” he added. “The (on-field) referee needs to see it (the replay) based on his interpretation.”

Collina is happy with the overall process, apart from a goal kick not initially being awarded. During the debrief, he also referenced how players were no longer covering their mouths since FIFA introduced a new rule that could see red cards shown if they perform that action when confronting an opponent. On Friday night, Miguel Almiron, the Paraguay international, was sent off for this, marking the first time it has happened at the World Cup.

Another example shown, this time with commentary from Busacca, was a clear handball not being awarded. The referee, both Collina and Busacca said, was in the perfect position, but avoided pointing to the spot.

“As I have told you all before, have the courage to make a decision,” Busacca said. “Thank God we had someone in Dallas (for VAR).”

Once the meeting ends, all the referees — except for Oliver, Burt and Mainwaring — head for lunch, with the Premier League trio instead going for their specific pre-Netherlands vs Sweden briefing.

This was supposed to be later in the afternoon, but they asked for an earlier slot so they could watch England’s opener against Croatia, which kicked off at 4pm local time.

In the briefing room, a match analyst had prepared predicted line-ups and a series of clips from the two teams’ first group fixtures against Japan and Tunisia respectively and talked Oliver and his assistants through what they should expect.

Collina came in to listen to some of it, peering over the trio, often nodding along when Oliver asked a smart question or offered an opinion.

They covered set pieces and how the Dutch are creating different blocks to create space in those situations for Virgil van Dijk, and how Sweden strikers Viktor Gyokeres and Alexander Isak may look to attack, as well as talking through other individual players. 

At one stage, Oliver, when asked how he is feeling about the match, said he knows several of the players involved from officiating their clubs’ Premier League fixtures. This, he felt, would be an advantage and help him manage the game.

He also questioned where he should try to position himself in a certain situation, prompting Collina to say: “Fast reading, fast reacting — otherwise, you are lost.”

The briefing, which was incredibly detailed and provided a rare insight into how much work goes on behind the scenes from a preparation standpoint, lasted around 40 minutes. 

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For the 139 referees and assistant referees — there were supposed to be 140, but Omar Artan was denied entry to the United States upon arrival — everything has been thought of and provided for them.

The old-school notion that the ref and their assistants just arrive at the stadium for a game having done very little preparation could not be further from the truth. Their nutrition is carefully curated, as are the times they are encouraged to eat, depending on when their next match kicks off.

A private Italian chef, Pierfrancesco Petta, has been flown in and oversees their menu, which, as you would expect, includes plenty of protein, vegetables and carbohydrates. Petta also prepares freshly rolled and cooked pasta on request. And if any of them are in need of a haircut, that has also been taken care of, with a barber regularly visiting to deliver $30 trims.

Although Collina and Busacca run a tight ship, the match officials are allowed out to explore Miami in their downtime, but not in their training kit, to help avoid any potential security issues.

At the hotel, which is plastered in FIFA and ‘Team One’ branding — the collective name given to the group of refs — many of the rooms have been turned into offices for employees such as Tim Goldman and Jeremy Deleze, who oversee, who oversees the World Cup’s referee operations and is a key cog in the machine, and Jessica Merenda, a psychologist made available to assist the officials at their request.

One request made by Collina when they all arrived at the beginning of June was for them to deactivate social media until they return home from the tournament, such is the scrutiny that would be placed on them during and after a match.

They also have several physios on site, with a sign-up sheet outside the door, and a games room with table tennis, consoles and several TVs.

By and large, especially for those not travelling to a game, their working day is over by lunch, but for Collina, that is when his day is really only just beginning. He watches every game from the technical instructor’s office in the hotel, with multiple screens showing the VAR angles, main broadcast feed and tactical camera on a 30-second delay.

Collina also listens to the communication between the referees and the VAR officials at their base in Dallas. It is in this room that he tends to watch all of the matches, with the only game he has been to so far being the USMNT’s opener against Paraguay.

He tries to escape for a jog along the seafront and to reset his mind before the day’s final fixture, but you are left in no doubt that he and his team are across every minor detail, even to the extent of overseeing when their flights to and from Miami will be.

As the tournament progresses, many of these referees will be sent home, with a cut expected between the round of 16 and the quarter-finals.

The game they all want to be in town for, of course, is the final. Collina says the process for deciding who will officiate the biggest game in football on July 19 is already underway, but a decision will not be made until the two competing teams are known.

Would he give any inclination as to who the early contenders are? Of course not. 

But one thing you can be certain of, FIFA provides everything and anything for the World Cup’s match officials and, in return, Collina expects nothing but the highest of standards, on and off the pitch.