The Verde Report: Referee’s Path to World Cup Began in Austin
“Every referee’s dream is to reach the World Cup”
By Eric Goodman, Fri., June 17, 2022
One Saturday morning in 2005, two under-8 youth soccer teams squared off at Town and Country Sports in North Austin and a World Cup-bound career was born. It would belong not to any of the rambunctious second-graders scurrying around the half-sized pitch that day, but to the nearly broke UT student attempting to keep them in order.
It was Ismail Elfath's first match as a soccer referee.
"At first, it was good cash, right?" Elfath recalled. "Like, why am I doing this, going in the sun doing eight to 10 games a day? It was a good chunk of change."
Seventeen years later, Elfath has turned his college side-hustle into a thriving career as one of North America's finest professional soccer referees, working full time as an arbiter in Major League Soccer and routinely taking high-profile international assignments as a member of FIFA's panel of elite match officials. Last month, Elfath's name appeared on a FIFA press release alongside 35 other referees from across the world's top soccer leagues, all of whom were selected to officiate matches at this winter's FIFA Men's World Cup in Qatar.
"Every referee's dream is to reach the World Cup," said Elfath, who wasn't even privy to his own selection until many of his friends and family had already seen the news. "I woke up early that day, then actually put my phone away and went back to sleep for another 45 minutes. When I woke up after that 45 minutes, my phone had over 50 or 60 messages. I was like, 'Okay, well, I guess it happened!'"
Elfath spoke with the Chronicle via a WhatsApp call while visiting family in his native Morocco. It was there, on the streets of Casablanca, where he developed a passion for soccer and habit of harassing referees over questionable calls. In 2001, at age 17, Elfath entered what was known as a "diversity lottery," earning an opportunity to become a permanent resident of the United States. He settled in Austin, enrolling as a mechanical engineering major at the University of Texas. On weekends, he continued to play soccer in amateur leagues around Austin, and continued to give referees hell.
"I was a hotheaded player," Elfath said. "I always complained to the guy that ran the league, and then one day he was like, 'Man, you always complain, you should just become a referee.'" Elfath accepted the challenge, attended a refereeing clinic, then began noticing that many of the job's demands came naturally to him as a lifelong player. Soon he picked up his first Saturday shift at Town and Country and began working his way up the Central Texas soccer ladder, from youth games, to high school, to Austin Aztex semi-pro matches at House Park. Eventually, he got his MLS call-up in 2012. All along, he worked full time in IT sales, got married, and had three children.
In 2018, with international opportunities flowing in, Elfath quit his sales position and committed 100% of his time to refereeing. It came with a pay cut, but brought the possibility of Qatar 2022 in play. He dedicated himself to a comprehensive physical (soccer refs are said to run on average between six and eight miles per match) and psychological fitness regimen and earned high-profile assignments at the 2019 FIFA U-20 and Club World Cups and the 2021 Tokyo Olympics. There was only one bigger stage left to reach.
When Elfath blows his whistle in Qatar in November, he'll do so representing the United States. But also, much, much more. "I am the triple minority. Immigrant, African descent, Muslim. I am the sole representative for the U.S., so it's a very humbling responsibility, but also one of those positions where you say, 'Anything is possible.'"
