Swiss referee Massimo Busacca has been voted the world’s best in 2009 by a global group of football historians.
Busacca, who took charge of the Champions League final last May, received 39 of 81 first-place votes on Wednesday from members of an International Federation of Football History and Statistics panel.
“The performance of referees this season is much better than in past years,” said Oğuz Sarvan, the president of the Turkish Soccer Federation’s (TFF) Central Refereeing Board, during his news conference at the WOW Airport Hotel in İstanbul on Monday.
Zimbabwe will this year have a truncated crew of match officials on the Fifa referees panel following the failure by the locals to impress the world soccer governing body and fulfil their regular quota.
MLS and the US Soccer Federation are working to improve the quality of referees and the quality of soccer.
There is a shortage of highly qualified referees in the US. USSF is making changes to annual requirements.