The FIFA Referees Committee has confirmed the appointment of Ghana’s Joseph Lamptey as part of 88 match officials from over 40 countries to officiate at the 2016 Rio Olympics games.
Lamptey, born September 10, 1974, has been earmarked along side Peru’s Diego Haro as two ‘support’ referees in a list of 18 for the men’s competition will also has 32 assistant referees. At the women’s tournament, 14 referees and 24 assistant referees will be on duty.
In both competitions, all six FIFA Confederations will be represented.The Confederation of African Football (CAF) is well represented by two centre referees – Ghead Grisha (Egypt) and Malang Diedhiou from Senegal as well as four other assistants to officate at the men’s football competition.
For the Women’s Football competition, Zambia’s 38-year-old Gladys Lengwe is the only female centre referee from Africa and would is joined by Bernadettar Kwimbira (Malawi) and Souad Oulhaj (Morocco) as Assistant Referees.
The Olympic Football Tournament Rio 2016 represents the first important step on the road to the FIFA World Cup Russia 2018 and the FIFA Women’s World Cup France 2019 for match officials.
The Olympic Football Tournament Rio 2016 will take place from August 3rd – 21st, with the competition’s men’s and women’s finals taking place in the iconic Maracana stadium.
The opening game of the tournament, the first group game of the women’s competition, will be played at the Olympic Stadium in Rio de Janeiro on Wednesday August 3rd.
Seven stadiums in total will host Olympic Football Tournament competitions including 2014 FIFA World Cup host venues: Belo Horizonte, Manaus, Salvador and Sao Paulo.