Subkhiddin Mohd Salleh, 44 a teacher at SM Vokasional Nibong Tebal, Penang has been selected to be a referee at the 2010 World Cup. He is apparently one of only 5 from Asia selected to be full referees.

He is the first ever Malaysian to be a full referee (not merely an assistant referee) at the World Cup, the world’s top football tournament and the world’s most widely-viewed sporting event: more than 715 million people watched the 2006 final.

He followed in the footsteps of Halim Abdul Hami and Mat Lazim Awang Hamad who were assistant referees during France 1998 and South Korea-Japan 2002.

Subkhiddin tried, but failed to make Germany 2006, instead Singaporean Shamsul Maidin was selected.

Apart from the obvious experience, he also needed to prove that he’s fit enough to:
(i) run 40m 6 times below 6.20 seconds;
(ii) run 10 rounds of 150m;
(iii) walk 50m 20 times.

He has been a FIFA-accredited referee since 2000. Before this, he has refereed at the 2007 Under-20 World Cup and the Asian Cup.

Look how he handled this U-20 Youth World Cup match between Portugal and Chile on 12th July 2007, when Zequinha, 20 of Portugal “stole” his red card, and was tearful in the resulting sending off. He was subsequently suspended for a year by the Portuguese Football Federation.

For the record, Chile beat Portugal 1-0 in the round of 16 match, and Chile ended up in 3rd place, when they lost 0-3 to eventual champions Argentina in the semis, and defeated Austria 1-0 in the 3rd place playoff.

Well handled, sir, and congratulations!

By the way, I wonder if life insurance rates for football referees are any higher than the rest of us?

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