Abongile Tom will become the third South African to serve in the middle at the FIFA World Cup, while linesman Zakhele Siwela is off to his third successive tournament as the 2026 finals are ready to kick off on Thursday.
Siwela joins an elite group who have been appointed to three tournaments, with only Iranian official Alireza Faghani being the only referee to be selected for four different tournaments (2014, 2018, 2022 and 2026).
The 43-year-old Siwela was also at the 2018 finals in Russia and served in Qatar four years ago.
There are a total of 52 referees, 88 assistant referees and 30 video match officials, hailing from all six confederations and 50 different countries, who have been selected to the panel to serve at the tournament in Canada, Mexico and the United States.
FIFA said: “The appointments were made on the basis of FIFA’s long-standing ‘quality first’ principle, while consideration was given to the consistency of the performances delivered by candidates at FIFA tournaments, as well as in international and domestic competitions in recent years.”
Tom, 34, and Siwela join an elite group of South African match officials previously chosen to work at a World Cup.
Cape Town’s Achmat Sallie must be considered the most successful South African match official at the World Cup, having been chosen to run the line at the final in Paris in 1998 when France beat Brazil to win their first-ever World Cup.
Sallie assisted the Moroccan referee Said Belqola, who is the only African referee to take charge of a World Cup final.
Sallie was on the line for four matches at the tournament while Ari Soldatos ran the line at three of the games, including England’s last-gasp loss to Romania.
At the same tournament, Ian McLeod became the first South African to referee at the World Cup, taking control of the 0–0 draw in Group D between Spain and Paraguay, played at Stade Geoffroy-Guichard, Saint-Étienne.
In 2010, Jerome Damon was in charge of two matches with Enock Molefe part of his team on the line. They did the 1-1 draw between New Zealand and Slovakia in Rustenburg and then Japan’s 3-1 win over Denmark, also at the Royal Bafokeng Sports Palace.
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