Record number of women to referee major FIBA events this summer
MIES (Switzerland) - FIBA has announced an experienced lineup of referees, with the highest number of women referees to date, to officiate this summer's upcoming tournaments.
MIES (Switzerland) - FIBA has announced an experienced lineup of referees, with the highest number of women referees to date, to officiate this summer's upcoming tournaments.
For the first time ever, women have been nominated to officiate at the FIBA U19 Basketball World Cup in Latvia, which will take place from July 3 to 11 in the cities of Riga and Daugavpils. Eight women referees will work at the tournament, while 12 female referees will be at the FIBA U19 Women's Basketball World Cup in Debrecen, Hungary (August 7-15). The number of nominated female referees for both combinations - 20 out of the 56 - is the biggest that it has ever been.
The fact that women referees will have a prominent role this summer is evidence that FIBA is acting on one of its main strategic focus areas for 2019-2023, Women in Basketball, which has the specific aim to develop and leverage female coaches and officials.
There will be also female commissioners and referee instructors at the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Basketball Tournaments, the four FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournaments and both FIBA U19 Basketball World Cups.
It is also noted that the FIBA U19 Women's Basketball World Cup will have a diversified group of referees with all of them coming from 28 different National Federations.
FIBA has also selected the 30 referees who will be officiating at the Olympic Basketball Tournaments in Tokyo, all of whom have refereed at past major events such as FIBA Basketball World Cups and Olympic Games. The list of referees, below, which includes both men and women, represent 23 Federations, coming from Africa, Americas, Asia, Europe and Oceania.
| The 30 FIBA Referees for the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Basketball Tournaments | ||||
| Samir Abaakil (MAR) | Ahmed Al-Shuwaili (IRQ) | Steven Anderson (USA) | Scott Beker (AUS) | Amy Bonner (USA) |
| James Boyer (AUS) | Luis Castillo (ESP) | Antonio Conde (ESP) | Juan Fernandez (ARG) | Maj Forsberg (DEN) |
| Alexander Glisic (SRB) | Gizella Gyorgyi (NOR) | Matthew Kallio (CAN) | Takaki Kato (JPN) | Martins Kozlovskis (LAT) |
| Leandro Lezcano (ARG) | Guilherme Locatelli (BRA) | Maripier Malo (CAN) | Manuel Mazzoni (ITA) | Yevgeniy Mikheyev (KAZ) |
| Rabah Moujaim (LBN) | Kingsley Ojeaburu (NGR) | Ferdinand Pascual (PHI) | Yohan Rosso (FRA) | Andreja Regina Silva (BRA) |
| Luis Vazquez (PUR) | Michael Weiland (CAN) | Yener Yilmaz (TUR) | Yu Jung (TPE) | Ademir Zurapovic (BIH) |
The Men’s Olympic Basketball Tournament takes place from July 25 and goes through until August 7, while the Women’s Olympic Basketball Tournament tips off July 26 and concludes August 8.
Twenty-four of the men that will referee at the Olympics officiated at the FIBA Basketball World Cup 2019 in China while all the male referees that will be in Tokyo worked as officials during 2017-2020 FIBA World Cup Qualifiers, FIBA Continental Qualifiers and the respective FIBA Continental Cups.
The five females have officiated at the FIBA Women's Olympic Qualifying Tournaments 2020, and four out of the five officiated at the FIBA Women's World Cup 2018 in Tenerife, Spain. Also, all five women referees officiate men's games on the national level and have refereed in recent years in the final stages of the FIBA Women's Continental Cups.
This pool of referees will be part of this summer's FIBA Olympic Qualifying Tournaments in Canada, Croatia, Lithuania and Serbia, as well as the FIBA U19 Basketball World Cup 2021 officiating teams, in the lead-up to the highly anticipated Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games.
FIBA