Singaporean referee to officiate Vietnam-Qatar semi-final match
Coach Park Hang-seo and his team escaped the worry of facing a referee from a country they had previously defeated at the 2018 AFC U23 Championship finals.
According to the announcement of the Asian Football Confederation, the referee for the match between Vietnam and Qatar is Muhammad Taqi of Singapore. He has been a FIFA referee since 2012. Last summer, heHe was the main referee for the match between Bayern Munich and Chelsea in the ICC Cup friendly tournament.
The four assistants for Taqi are Ida Jumpei (Japan), Liu Kwok Man (Hong Kong), Ronnie Kom Min Kiat (Singapore) and Akane Yagi (Japan).
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GrandfatherMuhammad Taqi has many years of experience as a referee. |
In the quarter-final match between Vietnam and Iraq, there were doubts about the main referee Chris Beath. He is Australian, the country whose U23 team was defeated by coach Park Hang-seo and his team in the group stage. The referee born in 1984 caused controversy when he awarded Iraq a penalty in the 29th minute, when the collision between Duy Manh and Dinh Trong with Aymen was unclear.
In addition, when the second extra time was only a matter of seconds, Beath and his assistants ignored the offside of the Iraqi player. Luckily, in this situation, although his teammates were all standing still, goalkeeper Tien Dung still dived to save the goal, keeping the score at 3-3 and then Vietnam won the penalty shootout.
Head of the VFF Referee Committee Nguyen Van Mui said that FIFA does not have a rule prohibiting the arrangement of referees from countries that lost in the group stage to officiate knockout matches. However, the arrangement of the organizing committee of the U23 Asian Finals still makes Vietnamese fans suspicious.
The fact that a referee from Southeast Asia officiated the semi-final match helped coach Park Hang-seo and his team somewhat reduce their worries about being unfairly treated. Vietnam is currently the only representative from Southeast Asia to make it to the top 4 of the U23 Asian tournament. AFF General Secretary Azzuddin said that "U23 Vietnam is the pride of the region". Fans from countries such as Thailand, Malaysia, and Singapore also gave a lot of praise to coach Park Hang-seo and his team and hoped that the team could continue writing the fairy tale in China.
The semi-final match between Vietnam and Qatar will take place at 3:00 p.m. (Hanoi time), January 23, in Jiangsu, China.
