Mark Geiger will be the man in the middle for England’s last-16 World Cup clash against Colombia on Tuesday evening.
Communication will not be an issue for the England players with the American official, who will be assisted by Joe Fletcher (Canada), Frank Anderson (USA) and Matt Congler (New Zealand) for what Gareth Southgate has called “England’s biggest game for a decade”.
In the VAR booth Geiger will be in contact with Dutchman Danny Makkelie.
Geiger, 43, has already refereed twice at this World Cup, so, what is his story?
Background
The former maths teacher from Pine Beach swapped the classroom for the football pitch in 2013, when he decided that the stresses and pressures of the job needed his full-time attention.
Now regarded as the most decorated referee in America, Geiger makes his living refereeing matches in the MLS and is very experienced when it comes to tournament football and the use of VAR.
This is Geiger’s second World Cup, having taken charge of three matches at the 2014 tournament in Brazil, where he was also the fourth official for the host nation’s embarrassing 7-1 semi-final exit against Germany.
Along with taking charge of 83 MLS matches during his career, Geiger is also a regular fixture on the roster for the World Cup CONCACAF qualifying fixtures and has also been the man in the middle for games at the Olympics and Confederations Cup.
Mark Geiger card watch
| Competition | No. of games | Yellow cards p/game | Red cards shown |
| MLS | 83 | 3.13 | 21 |
| World Cup | 5 | 2.60 | 0 |
Controversies
It has not been plain sailing for Geiger on his way to the top. CONCACAF had to release a statement admitting that Geiger made “officiating errors” in the 2015 Gold Cup semi-final between Panama and Mexico.
Panama complained to the football authorities after insisting they had a player wrongly sent off and a penalty was wrongly awarded in a 2-1 defeat.
One newspaper in Panama ran the front page of: “F******g Arbitro” and their football federation claimed the match had been fixed in favour of Mexico. Geiger later admitted in an interview with ESPN that if he had access to VAR during that match, he would have changed his decision in favour of Panama.
Geiger also had to be escorted off the pitch by security following Atlanta United’s 2-0 loss to Sporting KC in May when an early goal to Atlanta was disallowed by an offside call on Josef Martinez.
Geiger originally signalled for a goal, but reviewed the play to VAR. After a short review, Geiger disallowed the goal that would have given Atlanta a 1-0 lead at the time.
Atlanta centre-back Leandro Gonzalez Pirez was not happy with Geiger, calling for him to be suspended.
“It’s stupid,” he said.
“Because Parker runs to one side and Josef runs to the other side? He says foul. This is a foul? This is real? This is stupid. The referee every week, every single week, the same.”
World Cup 2018 record
Portugal 1-0 Morocco: A game settled by an early Cristiano Ronaldo goal which was played at a hectic tempo but rarely provided Geiger with any difficult calls to make. He brandished two yellow cards, one for a clear foul by Mehdi Benatia on Ronaldo and the other for Adrien Silva during injury-time. Pepe did try to con the referee after theatrically throwing himself to the floor after Benatia had patted him on the back, but Geiger was not buying it.
Following the game, the referee was accused by Nordin Amrabat of asking Ronaldo for his shirt during the game.
However, FIFA released a statement denying those claims, saying it “unequivocally condemned the allegations” and that Geiger “had acted in an exemplary and professional manner”.
South Korea 2-0 Germany: Geiger officiated a pulsating affair that resulted in Germany exiting the tournament in sensational circumstances. His experience using the VAR system was on show when called into action for South Korea’s opening goal. The offside flag was initially raised as Kim Young-gwon tucked in from close range and the goal was ruled out, but the referee used VAR to decide that the ball correctly came off a German defender which meant Kim was onside.
He also brandished four yellow cards during the match, including one for Son Heung-min for an alleged simulation – which looked harsh.
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Sourse: skysports.com
