Benito Archundia

Benito Armando Archundia Téllez (born March 21, 1966) is a Mexican football referee. He is known in Mexico as Armando Archundia, but appears as Benito Archundia in FIFA records.

He has been a professional referee since 1985 and has had his FIFA referee permission since 1993. His first fixture as an international referee was the 1994 match between USA and Greece.

Besides being a referee, Archundia is a lawyer and economist.

He was preselected as a referee for the 2010 FIFA World Cup.

World Cup 2006

Archundia made his first World Cup appearance in the 2006 FIFA World Cup and refereed a total of five matches, equaling the most number of matches by an individual referee (along with Argentina's Horacio Elizondo). His final game was the semi-final between Germany and Italy. In general he was the most lenient referee at the 2006 World Cup, giving out an average of only 3 cards per game (the lowest of any referee at the competition).

Controversies

Archundia has officiated two matches involving the Canada national soccer team where he made controversial decisions during the final minutes.

The first controversy occurred during a World Cup qualifier between Canada and Honduras played in Edmonton on September 4, 2004. With Canada leading 1-0 in the 86th minute, Canada defender Mark Watson appeared to trip David Suazo in the penalty area. Archundia awarded a penalty kick which Amado Guevara converted to tie the score. Replays show that Mark Watson did not actually make contact with David Suazo on the play. One minute later, Olivier Occean appeared to score a second goal for Canada, but Archundia whistled the play dead after calling a foul against Occean for a dangerous high kick. Following the decision, manager Frank Yallop and several Canada players argued that the foul call was erroneous. The Canadians felt aggrieved following the draw, believing that they should have been entitled to a victory.

A third controversy involving Archundia occurred during the 2007 CONCACAF Gold Cup semi-final between the United States and Canada played in Chicago on June 21, 2007. With the United States leading 2-1 in stoppage time, Atiba Hutchinson appeared to score for Canada to tie the game in the dying seconds, but Archundia whistled the play dead for offside. The Canadian Press reported that a replay shows Hutchinson in an onside position at the time of Patrice Bernier's pass, and that he received the ball only after it was played by American defender Oguchi Onyewu. Moments later, Archundia called time while the Canadian players and staff argued the call. However it is difficult to fault Archundia for this controversy for he had to rely on the information provided to him by his Assistant Referee. The Assistant was the official who signaled for the offside infraction, and Archunida followed his Assistant's advice - normal procedure for offside infractions.

Another controversy soon followed in the Copa América 2007 during the group stage match between Peru and Venezuela. In the 62nd minute of the match, with Venezuela leading 1-0 and Peru playing down a man since the 14th minute, Peruvian forward Paolo Guerrero centers the ball just in front of the Venezuelan goal inside the goal area. Peruvian captain Claudio Pizarro and Venezuelan defender Hector Gonzalez raced to the ball. Pizarro appeared to have great opportunity to tap the ball past a sole defender on the goal line, however Gonzalez slid and swept the ball away, but not before taking Pizarro off his feet. Archundia refused to award the penalty and decided to play on, to the dismay of the commentators and several fans, who felt he missed the call.

During the 2009 FIFA Club World Cup match between Estudiantes de La Plata and FC Barcelona, Archundia was considered to have made many more discutable decisions in the disadvantage of FC Barcelona , most notably showing a yellow card to Lionel Messi for pretending a foul and failing to see a clear penalty by Estudiantes goalkeeper Damián Albil on Xavi Hernandez.

External links

• FIFA profile