Amid the sloppy refereeing claims by both Brazil and Colombia during the teams' physically brutal quarterfinal match on Friday, FIFA has assigned the referee who had missed out Luis Suarez biting opponent Giorgio Chiellini during the Uruguay-Italy match to the highly-anticipated semifinal match between Brazil and Germany, the Guardian reported.
According to the official website of the world soccer body, Marco Rodríguez of Mexico will be handling the match slated to be played in Belo Horizonte on Tuesday. Rodríguez, who has handled two previous tournament finals matches, officiated the June 24 match that Uruguay won over Italy in a 1-0 win and Belgium's 2-1 stunning defeat against Algeria.
Concerns about the refereeing in the World Cup reached to new heights after the match between Brazil and Colombia posted a record 54 fouls, BBC reported. Brazil was also involved in making the previous record, which was at 51 during its match against Chile. The quarterfinals match on Friday also led to the early exit of Brazilian star Neymar after he suffered a back injury during a collision with Juan Zuniga, of which went unnoticed by the officiating referee. Colombian player and Golden Boot winner-so-far James Rodriguez also blamed the type of refereeing during the match as the reason why his team had failed to advance to the World Cup finals.
The incident between Suarez and Chiellini was the most talked-about unseen foul in this year's World Cup so far. Suarez has since received a wide-ranging punishment from FIFA, although there is no rule provision on whether punishment would be exacted on the match officials who had missed the foul.
On the other hand, Rodriguez and his fellow Mexican officials will be joined by Mark Geiger of the US, who will be serving as the fourth official for the semifinals match, the Guardian said. Geiger also served as the fourth referee during the match against Uruguay and Italy.
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