🌎 Just one Spaniard and 21 from the Americas: World Cup referees | OneFootball

The 2026 World Cup already knows its on-field referees.

Spanish refereeing has received one of the most eagerly awaited and, at the same time, surprising pieces of news ahead of the next World Cup. As first reported by Onda Cero, FIFA has finalized the list of referees for the 2026 World Cup to be held in the United States, Mexico and Canada, and Spain will have only one representative as a main referee: Canary Islander Alejandro Hernández Hernández. This decision confirms the Lanzarote-born official as the leading figure in Spanish refereeing at the tournament.

The news marks a change from the initial expectations, since the shortlist included major names such as José María Sánchez Martínez. Spanish football traditionally used to have two representatives in the final stage of World Cups, as happened in Qatar 2022 with Mateu Lahoz and Gil Manzano.

On the other hand, there is a strong presence of referees from the Americas, with as many as 21 in total. They are distributed as follows: one Canadian referee, one Costa Rican, one Honduran, one Jamaican, two Mexicans, two Americans, one Salvadoran, three Argentinians, three Brazilians, one Chilean, one Colombian, one Paraguayan, one Peruvian, one Uruguayan and one Venezuelan.

The list of referees for the 2026 World Cup

(Information from 'AS')

Michael Oliver (England)

Anthony Taylor (England)

Francois Letexier (France)

Clement Turpin (France)

Felix Zwayer (Germany)

Maurizio Mariani (Italy)

Danny Makkelie (Netherlands)

Espen Eskas (Norway)

Szymon Marciniak (Poland)

Joao Pinheiro (Portugal)

Istvan Kovacs (Romania)

Slavko Vincic (Slovenia)

Alejandro Hernández Hernández (Spain)

Glenn Nyberg (Sweden)

Sandro Schaerer (Switzerland)

Adham Makhadmeh (Jordan)

Ning Ma (China)

Alireza Faghani (Australia)

Yusuke Araki (Japan)

Abdulrahman Al Jassim (Qatar)

Khalid Al Turais (Saudi Arabia)

Ilgiz Tantashev (Uzbekistan)

Mustapha Ghorbal (Algeria)

Pierre Atcho (Gabon)

Amin Mohamed (Egypt)

Jalal Jayed (Morocco)

Dahane Beida (Mauritania)

Omar Abdulkadir Artan (Somalia)

Abongile Tom (South Africa)

Drew Fischer (Canada)

Juan Calderon (Costa Rica)

Said Martinez (Honduras)

Oshane Nation (Jamaica)

Cesar Ramos (Mexico)

Katia Garcia (Mexico)

Ivan Barton (El Salvador)

Ismail Elfath (USA)

Tori Penso (USA)

Yael Falcon Perez (Argentina)

Dario Herrera (Argentina)

Facundo Tello (Argentina)

Ramon Abatti (Brazil)

Raphael Claus (Brazil)

Wilton Sampaio (Brazil)

Cristian Garay (Chile)

Andres Rojas (Colombia))

Juan Gabriel Benitez (Paraguay)

Kevin Ortega (Peru)

Gustavo Tejera (Uruguay)

Jesus Valenzuela (Venezuela)

This article was translated into English by Artificial Intelligence. You can read the original version in 🇪🇸 here.

📸 PAUL ELLIS - AFP or licensors