A Saudi referee who has admitted to soliciting a bribe has been deselected from 2018 World Cup duty, confirmed the FIFA Referees Committee on Wednesday.
Thirty-two-year-old Fahad Al Mirdasi refereed games at the Rio Olympics in 2016 and the 2017 Confederations Cup and had been set to oversee World Cup games in Russia next month.
The FIFA confirmed that Al Mirdasi's World Cup selection had been withdrawn with immediate effect. "The FIFA Referees Committee has taken the decision not to directly replace Al Mirdasi," it said, adding that the two assistant referees on his team, Mohammed Al Abakry and Abdulah Alshalwai, had also been dropped.
Two weeks ago, the Saudi Arabia Football Federation (SAFF) banned the referee for life after he confessed to attempting to fix a match in his country's domestic cup competition.
The SAFF said that Al Mirdasi offered to fix the King’s Cup final, played on May 12, on behalf of the Al Ittihad club.
He approached Al Ittihad chief Hamad Al-Senaie, who immediately handed over the WhatsApp messages to SAFF officials and they alerted the relevant government authorities, said the SAFF.
Al Mirdasi was taken into police custody where he confessed to soliciting the corrupt payment.
Al Ittihad beat Al Faisaly in the King’s Cup final, winning after extra-time a game refereed by former Premier League official Mark Clattenburg.
Clattenburg, who was appointed Head of Refereeing at the SAFF last year, suddenly replaced Al Mirdasi a few hours before kick-off.
Al Mirdasi has been on the FIFA referees’ list since 2011 and officiated at last year’s Confederations Cup in Russia.
(With inputs from Reuters and AFP)
By Li Jing
