Five Korean referees to officiate at 2023 Women's World Cup

Five Korean referees have been appointed to the pool of match officials for the 2023 Australia-New Zealand Women’s World Cup, FIFA announced Monday.

From left: Oh Hyeon-jeong, Kim Yu-jeong, Kim Kyoung-min, Lee Seul-gi and Park Mi-suk. [YONHAP]

Five Korean referees have been appointed to the pool of match officials for the 2023 Australia-New Zealand Women’s World Cup, FIFA announced Monday.

Two Korean referees and three support referees were included on the list of 88 on-pitch match officials released by football’s governing body on Monday, with 19 video match officials to monitor VAR also appointed.

Kim Yu-jeong and Oh Hyeon-jeong were both named to the pool of 33 referees for the tournament. The two referees, who have both previously won the Korea Football Association’s Female Referee of the Year award, will be officiating at a World Cup for the first time.

Alongside the pair, Kim Kyoung-min, Lee Seul-gi and Park Mi-suk were all chosen as assistant referees. While Park will also be attending her first World Cup, Lee is officiating for a second time and Kim Kyoung-min for a fifth time.

All five referees are female.

The 2023 World Cup will be co-hosted by Australia and New Zealand from July 20 to Aug. 20 next year. Korea has been drawn in Group H alongside Germany, Colombia and Morocco and will be playing all of its group fixtures in Australia.

This year marks the ninth edition of the Women's World Cup finals with 32 countries competing, eight more than the 24 that competed in the last tournament, making this edition the biggest in the history of the World Cup.

The 32 countries are divided into eight groups of four and the first and second placed teams of each group will advance to the round of 16.

Korea qualified for the 2023 World Cup with a 1-0 victory over Australia in the quarterfinals of the AFC Women's Asian Cup in January 2020. Australia was the highest-ranked team in the tournament, standing at No. 11 at the time and seven spots above Korea.

BY JIM BULLEY [jim.bulley@joongang.co.kr]