Peter Prendergast (referee)

Peter Prendergast (born September 23, 1963) is a football referee from Jamaica. A FIFA referee since January 1, 1994, his first international match was USA against Ireland, on June 9, 1996. Since then he has refereed many matches in the CONCACAF Gold Cup, the Olympics, the FIFA World Cup and the Confederations Cup.

Prendergast is bilingual, able to speak Spanish as well as his native English.

Controversy

Prendergast was one of the referees at the 2002 FIFA World Cup in Japan and South Korea. He was appointed as referee of the 1/8 finale match between Brazil and Belgium. In the first half he canceled a valid Belgium goal by Marc Wilmots, while he was the only one to have seen a fault (every commentator/ spectator/ player was stunned by this decision). Wilmots and other players of the Belgian team say the referee apologised for this wrong decision in the catacombs at half time, The Belgians were handed over the fair play award, mainly because of this match. Brazil went on to win the tournament, and later the players stated their 1/8 finale against Belgium was their tournament's most difficult match.

References

• (German) Profile