Pretoria - Two of the 30 referees selected to officiate at the upcoming 2010 FIFA World Cup will no longer be a part of the tournament after their assistants failed their fitness tests.
FIFA said referee Mohamed Benouza of Algeria and his assistants, Nasser Abdel Nadi of Egypt, Maamar Chabane of Algeria will no longer officiate at the tournament which is just 13 days away.
The other referee who is no longer coming to South Africa is Carlos Amarilla of Paraguay together with his assistants, Emigdio Ruiz and Nicolas Yegros both from Paraguay.
However, FIFA appointed Uruguanian referee, Martin Vazquez Broquetas and his two assistants, Carlos Pastorino and Miguel Nievas as replacement.
"It is one of FIFA's main objectives to significantly improve refereeing standards and, to this end, the FIFA Referees Committee has selected trios of match officials who come from the same country or confederation and who share the same language.
"Instructions issued to the referees prior to the competition made it clear that entire trios would be forced out of the competition if either the main referee or two of the assistant referees were unable to complete or pass the fitness test.
"The official fitness tests were conducted in each of the six confederations by FIFA instructors during the past week," FIFA said.
