Japanese referee officiated the Vietnam - Malaysia semi-final match.

According to information from the AFF Cup 2014 organizing committee, Japanese referee Masaaki Toma will officiate the second leg of the semi-final match between the Vietnamese and Malaysian national teams.

Masaaki Toma, born in 1973, is a high-ranking referee from Japan. In addition to officiating matches in the J.League, he is also among the referees who officiate in the most prestigious club competition in Asia, the AFC Champions League.

Referee Masaaki Toma

Referee Masaaki Toma will officiate the second leg of the semi-final match between Vietnam and Malaysia.

In 2011, he was the first foreign referee to have the honor of being invited by the English Football Association (FA) to officiate an FA Cup match between Brentford and Basingstoke Town.

A highlight of referee Masaaki Toma's international career was officiating the friendly match between England and Mexico in 2010. At the 2012 AFF Cup, he also refereed the first leg of the semi-final between Singapore and Thailand.

Masaaki Toma is a familiar name in Vietnamese football. In 2009, the Japanese referee officiated the match between the Vietnamese national team and Lebanon in the 2011 Asian Cup Qualifiers (Vietnam won 3-1). In the 2014 V.League season, he was also chosen to referee the match between Binh Duong and Hanoi T&T on June 17th.

In the first leg of the 2014 AFF Cup semi-final between Malaysia and Vietnam, held at Shah Alam Stadium on December 7th, Chinese referee Ma Ning made several inaccurate decisions and overlooked numerous blatant fouls by the home team's players.

With the organizers of the 2014 AFF Cup assigning a high-caliber referee like Masaaki Toma to officiate the second leg of the semi-final, it is hoped that mistakes unfavorable to the Vietnamese team will not be repeated at My Dinh Stadium on December 11th.

According to Zing