Pierluigi Collina, the Chairman of the FIFA Referees Committee, has spoken about the meticulous preparations for the FIFA World Cup 2026™, saying that no stone has been left unturned to ensure that standards are as high as possible. “The expectations for refereeing at the (FIFA) World Cup 2026 are very high because we had a very, very successful (FIFA) World Cup in Qatar in 2022. So, of course, the bar has been positioned very high, and we cannot go lower,” said Mr Collina, who participated in a panel on refereeing and innovation ahead of the Final Draw for the FIFA World Cup 2026™ in Washington DC, United States. In fact, he said that preparations for the upcoming tournament – the first FIFA World Cup™ to feature 48 teams – began almost as soon as the one in Qatar had finished.

“We started working on the preparations of match officials already immediately after the end of the (FIFA) World Cup in Qatar – by selecting a pool of candidates who went through different seminars in different areas of the world,” he said. “We continued and we monitored our referees in terms of their performances in domestic competitions, also in confederation competitions. We monitored their fitness, their health, nutrition. Everything has been checked and controlled with the purpose of getting the referees ready.” This will be followed by seminars in different parts of the world for the match officials in the first half of 2026. “So, we are working hard with the objective of getting the referees very well prepared,” he said. Pierluigi Collina himself refereed at the men’s Olympic Games football tournament in Atlanta in 1996 and said that modern-day preparation of match officials was unrecognisable from those days.

“If I look back at when I was here, in the United States for the Olympics 1996, 30 years ago, a long time, and I compare what we did, or what was done by referees at the (FIFA) World Cup in 1998 and 2002, which I officiated [in], and I compare to what match officials do today, or what we do with match officials today, is really night and day,” he said. Referees now undergo meticulous preparations, supported by a team of specialists from different areas of the game so they know exactly what to expect when a match kicks off. “Everything is very, very professional. We are working with top specialists in different areas,” he said. “So, we really do not leave any stone unturned to get them prepared, professionally prepared.” Refereeing is closely connected with innovation and the FIFA Club World Cup 2025 saw the trials of including body cameras for referees and advanced semi-automated offside technology. In the FIFA Innovation Programme, FIFA invites companies, start-ups, research institutes, as well as every single innovator to go share ideas on FIFA.com on how the game can further be improved.

“When it comes to development, we always [start] with trying to identify: What is the problem? What is the challenge? So here, to take the example with FIFA refereeing, we are working very closely with Pierluigi’s team at FIFA – looking into: What is the actual problem? What is the actual challenge?” said Johannes Holzmüller, Director of Innovation. “Whatever we are doing and also what we are bringing to the (FIFA) World Cup next year in USA, Canada and Mexico, always under the principle of: we want to improve the football experience on and off the pitch, meaning for the players, for the referees, or the teams, as well as for the fans in the stadiums but also watching from home.”