"VAN" (Sports Desk - 30.05.2025) :: With just one month to go until the World Rugby U20 Championship 2025 kicks off in Italy, excitement is mounting and World Rugby has confirmed the Emirates Match Official panel for the prestigious tournament.
Ten referees from 10 different unions have been selected to officiate at the age-grade tournament, which will be staged across the Lombardia and Veneto regions from 29 June-19 July.
The selected referees are: Tomas Bertazza (Argentina), Ben Breakspear (Wales), Griffin Colby (South Africa), Katsuki Furuse (Japan), Peter Martin (Ireland), Marcus Playle (New Zealand), Jérémy Rozier (France), Filippo Russo (Italy), Lex Weiner (USA) and Morgan White (Hong Kong China).
Seven of the 10 will be making their World Rugby U20 Championship debuts, including Katsuki Furuse (pictured), Morgan White, and Lex Weiner, who all impressed at the World Rugby U20 Trophy 2024 in Scotland – underlining the strength of World Rugby’s development pathway for match officials.
This pathway is further highlighted by the presence of six Italian officials who will serve as assistant referees during the tournament, among them Alberto Favaro and Franco Rosella.
Five Television Match Officials complete the panel in Leo Colgan (Ireland), Graham Cooper (Australia), Aled Griffiths (Wales), Quinton Immelman (South Africa) and Dan Jones (RFU) with two of them – Colgan and Immelman – also selected for Women’s Rugby World Cup 2025 in England later this year.
World Rugby Talent ID Manager and Tournament Referee Manager Johnny Lacey said: “The selection of this panel highlights the referees that are coming through our pathway system. We have been working closely with our unions and regions to increase the number of match officials in our pathway into World Rugby competitions.
“We are already starting to see the benefits with our talent identification programme providing four referees for this tournament and we are excited to see what the future holds for the officials involved in our men’s and women’s pathways.”
The World Rugby U20 Championship match schedule
The world’s best 12 teams will play matches across four cities in Italy – Calvisano, Rovigo, Verona and Viadana – in the race to lift the coveted trophy.
England are the defending champions after beating France in the 2024 final in South Africa for a fourth title, while three-time winners France arrive in Italy as U20 Six Nations champions and six-time champions New Zealand recently won the U20 Rugby Championship crown.
Scotland will compete in the U20 Championship for the first time since they were relegated in 2019 in Argentina, having won the World Rugby U20 Trophy on home soil in Edinburgh last year.
Split into three pools of four teams, the winners of each pool and the best runner-up across the three pools will qualify for the semi-finals.
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