Premier Soccer League (PSL) referee Jelly Chavani is heading to Qatar for the FIFA U17 World Cup.
Chavani, 29, will be the sole representative from South Africa among the match officials, which features 27 referees and 54 assistant referees.
Chavani, who hails from the Limpopo province, is one of only four African referees for the finals, including Hamza El Fariq (Morocco), Tanguy Mebiame (Gabon) and Abdel Abdou Merife (Cameroon).
More recently, Chavani has been officiating in the African Nations Championship (CHAN) in East Africa, gaining more experience on the international scene.
“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.
Chairman of the FIFA Referees Committee, Pierluigi Collina, added, “This year’s FIFA U-17 World Cup is a landmark competition that will feature the stars of tomorrow and will equally offer talented match officials a thrilling opportunity to further develop their careers in a very competitive setting. The tournament will also give us another chance to test Football Video Support (FVS), thus enhancing our previous findings.”
FVS was successfully trialed last year at the FIFA Women’s U20 World Cup in Colombia and the FIFA Women’s U17 World Cup in the Dominican Republic.
This year, it has already been confirmed that it will be used at the FIFA U20 World Cup in Chile and the FIFA U17 Women’s World Cup in Morocco in addition to the U17 showpiece in Qatar.
FVS was developed following numerous requests from Member Associations for 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.
The junior World Cup will be played in the Asian state from 3 to 27 November.
South Africa’s U17 national team, Amajimbos, will be in Group A alongside hosts Qatar, Italy, and Bolivia.
