Bridgetown's ref set to whistle for World Cup

Cape Town's Jerome Damon, initially one of Fifa's back-up officials for the World Cup finals, has been drafted onto the list of 23 referees to take charge of matches during the tournament that starts on Friday.

School teacher Damon will be the fourth official at Sunday's match between Mexico and Iran in Nuremberg and will perform the same duty next Tuesday when South Korea play Togo in Frankfurt.

Soccer's world-governing body Fifa has announced the referees and linesmen for the first 16 matches of the finals with Argentine's Horacio Elizondo named the man to blow Friday's opening game between hosts Germany and Costa Rica.

When Damon arrived in Germany 10 days ago he was one of five standby referees, who with their assistants, would be waiting to step in should anyone pull out with injury, illness or for any other reason.

Two weeks ago the Italian federation withdrew referee Massimo de Santis along with linesmen Alessandro Griselli and Marco Ivaldi from the roster of World Cup officials. The move came in the wake of the "referee-tampering" scandal that has rocked Italian soccer over the past month.

At the time Damon had no idea who would replace the Italians, but said: "I'm ready for the challenge, no problem; I'll go on."

In a first for the World Cup, Fifa have introduced the so-called "trio system" where each referee will be assisted by two linesmen from his country or confederation.

South African referee Enoch Molefi and Justice Yeboah of Ghana are Damon's assistants.

On Sunday he will be the fourth official to the Italian trio of ref Roberto Rosetti and linesmen Cristiano Copelli and Alessandro Stagnoli with Molefi the game's fifth official.

And next week Damon will be back-up to top English referee Graham Poll and linesmen Philip Sharp and Glenn Turner, with Yeboah the fifth man.

Before leaving for the World Cup Damon said he was in constant contact with Poll. "I often call Graham after watching a Premiership match going over his decisions."

With 64 games in all to be played over the four-week tournament, Bridgetown High English teacher Damon is likely to soon get his chance to take the stage at one of sport's greatest events.