We are almost there. After nearly a month of all the world’s biggest club franchises battling it out for the coveted Fifa Club World Cup, we have arrived at 2025’s two top contenders: PSG, coached by Luis Enrique and Chelsea, under the guidance of Enzo Maresca. While Chelsea has lifted this cup up before in 2021, back when Thomas Tuchel was head coach, PSG, though not yet a club cup winner have won literally every other title for a club to win this year. And they have been consistently winning by wide margins, so this is going to be a game worth gluing yourselves to your screen for. Just so everyone is fully prepped, here’s a look into the man who’s actually going to have to have his eyes on that ball, every second of those 90 plus minutes tomorrow, Alireza Faghani, the referee for the 2025 Club World Cup Final.

Who is Alireza Faghani?

Alireza Faghani is an Iranian born referee, who in fact comes from a family of referees. His father Mohammad Faghani was also a referee and his brother referees in Sweden. Faghani spent a large portion of his career working in Iran, where he first played soccer in many local youth teams. He eventually qualified to play for Iran’s League 2, which is the third highest division in the country’s soccer system.

In 2008, Faghani became a Fifa referee, and from here, his career began to sky rocket. To contextualize this, in order to become a Fifa recognized referee, a referee must first be certified as a national level referee through their country’s football association. Then, based on their performance, they are nominated to be on the FIFA international referee list. So, Faghani was making quite an impact early on in his career, hence the recognition.

Australian referee Alireza Faghani to officiate Club World Cup Final: a look at his career

Just the year after being recognized by FIFA, Faghani officiated the 2009 AFC President’s Cup Final and did so again for the following year’s cup. He was also amongst the referees for the opening match between Brazil and Croatia in the 2014 FIFA World Cup. Given all this, it’s no surprise that he went on to officiate the 2016 Summer Olympics in Brazil, where he was in charge of officiating the game between Germany and the host team. He was also active during the 2018 and 2022 Fifa World Cups in Russia and Qatar respectively, and the 2019 Asian Cup in between in the UEA.

It was somewhere in between all that, that Faghani and his family emigrated to Australia, where he has since been recognized as an Australian referee on FIFA’s list, and has become the second Australian referee to watch over FIFA’s club showpiece match after Chris Beath first took on this prestigious role in 2021. Faghani has managed to rise so monumentally in his career on account of his calm demeanour and consistent decisions and his appointment to this club cup final is only a testament to all of that!

However, this isn’t even Faghani’s first time officiating a Club World Cup final. In 2015, Faghani was selected to officiate the FIFA Club World Cup final in Japan, and blew the final whistle in the game between Barcelona and River Plate where the former won 3-0. But it isn’t a common occurrence, for a referee to officiate multiple Club Cup finals and after tomorrow’s match he will become the second ref to do so after Uzebkistan’s Ravshan Irmatov, who shared the same honor in 2008 and 2011.

In this year’s tournament itself, Faghani, now 47, has seen three other matches, and also officiated the Inter Miami CF-Al Ahly FC game at Hard Rock Stadium in Miami Gardens earlier in the tournament. Faghani, a two time winner of the Asian Football Confederation’s referee of the year award, had this to say about him being appointed to officiate the final,  “I feel great, actually. We [were busy for] two weeks with preparation regarding all aspects and then, finally, I received the final game.” Faghani won’t, however, be alone with all that pressure. He will be backed up by a team of other experienced officials, all handpicked over the course of their careers and this tournament to do justice to the end of this monumental tournament.

Who are the other match officials?

So, who are the other match officials?

Well, the referee assistants and inadvertently second and third officials will be two fellow Australians, Anton Shchetinin & Ashley Beecham. This is not an anomaly but a common practice in matches, to have the head ref and his two assistants from the same nation. Then, to keep things balanced, the fourth official will be Facundo Tello, from Argentina. Tello, who was recognized by FIFA in 2019, has been refereeing at the first tier of Argentinian football since 2013, so he brings his own wealth of experience to the game. 

Then come the video assistant referees, who rather than reviewing the game in real time, watch the video playbacks to make the decisions when they are called upon to do so. This diverse team will be made up of Bastian Dankert (Germany), Tatiana Guzmán (Nicaragua) and Ivan Bebek (Croatia). Things get a little exciting here, if you’re someone who’s kept up with referee, or specifically VAR intel. Bastian Dankert made a pretty controversial decision back in the 2024 Euro Cup, where he gave England a penalty in a game against the Netherlands, based on the fact that Netherlands defender Denzel Dumfries knocked Harry Kane down after he released his shot. The eventual penalty led to a goal by Kane, so the call was highly criticized as Kane didn’t have possession of the ball.

Of the team put together to help guide the fate of this final, , chairman of the FIFA referee committee, Pierluigi Collina made this statement, “We chose Alireza Faghani and the rest of the team, because we think – we are convinced – that this is the best team for the final,” so we can trust in the experience and accolades that this final is going to be in good hands.