Japanese referee Yuichi Nishimura has been appointed by the committee to officiate the decider between South Korea and Iran on June 17 in Seoul.
“The AFC Referees Committee has selected East Asian referees for our matches against North and South Korea. We don’t want to be pessimistic and hope the Japanese referee has a good performance in the vital match,” Mehdi Taj said.
“We ask them why they choose referees from the Middle East and Uzbekistan for our home games, while they select East Asian referees for away games,” he added.
Iran is fourth in the 2010 FIFA World Cup South Africa qualifiers with seven points. South Korea tops the pool with 15 points, followed by its northern neighbor with 11 points, with Saudi Arabia in third, also with 11 points. The UAE have just one point.
The third-place team in the group will go to a playoff with the third-place team in Group A for the right to play Oceania champion New Zealand for a spot at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa.