Benito Archundia

Benito Armando Archundia Téllez (born March 21, 1966) is a Mexican former 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.

Benito Armando Archundia Téllez

Full name	Benito Armando Archundia Téllez
Born	(1966-03-21) 21 March 1966 (age 59) Mexico
Other occupation	Lawyer, Economist
Domestic
Years	League	Role
1985–2011	Liga MX	Referee
International
Years	League	Role
1993–2010	FIFA listed	Referee

In this Spanish name, the first or paternal surname is Archundia and the second or maternal family name is Téllez.

Archundia is the all-time leader in appearances at the FIFA World Cup, being one of only two referees who have been appointed for 8 matches, the other being Joël Quiniou. He also shares the record for the most matches officiated in a single World Cup (5 in 2006). The only others who have achieved this feat are Horacio Elizondo in 2006, and Ravshan Irmatov in 2010.^[1]

In addition, he has supervised the final of the FIFA Club World Cup twice, in 2005 and 2009.

He originally planned to retire at the end of the 2010 FIFA World Cup, but decided to continue for at least another year. He was the referee in the grand opening of the Estadio Omnilife, which featured Guadalajara vs Manchester United.^[2]

In addition to working as a professional referee, Archundia is a lawyer and economist.

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 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 one of the most respected and proficient referees at the 2006 World Cup, and give out an average of only 3 cards per game (the lowest of any referee at the competition).^[3]

Tournament	Date	Venue	Round	Team 1	Result	Team 2
2006	June 13	Olympiastadion, Berlin	First round	Brazil	1 – 0	Croatia
2006	June 18	Zentralstadion, Leipzig	First round	France	1 – 1	South Korea
2006	June 22	FIFA WM Stadion Hamburg, Hamburg	First round	Czech Republic	0 – 2	Italy
2006	June 26	FIFA WM Stadion Köln, Cologne	Round of 16	Switzerland	0 – 0 (0 – 3 pk)	Ukraine
2006	July 4	FIFA WM Stadion Dortmund, Dortmund	Semi-finals	Germany	0 – 2 (a.e.t.)	Italy

World Cup 2010

His second World Cup appearance was in the 2010 FIFA World Cup and refereed a total of three matches. His final game was the third place play-off between Germany and Uruguay.

Tournament	Date	Venue	Round	Team 1	Result	Team 2
2010	June 14	Cape Town Stadium, Cape Town	First round	Italy	1 – 1	Paraguay
2010	June 25	Moses Mabhida Stadium, Durban	First round	Portugal	0 – 0	Brazil
2010	July 10	Nelson Mandela Bay Stadium, Port Elizabeth	Third place play-off	Uruguay	2 – 3	Germany

Controversy

On 27 June 2007, Archundia was the head referee of the semi-final match between Canada and the U.S.A.. During the last minutes of the match, Canada's Atiba Hutchinson scored a goal that would have equalised the score for Canada. However, a linesman erroneously indicated that Hutchinson was offside, and Archundia subsequently disallowed Hutchinson's goal. Video replays showed that the football came into contact with the U.S.A.'s defender Oguchi Onyewu immediately before Hutchinson scored the goal.^[4][5][6] Therefore, according to the laws of the game,^[7] there was no offside offence for Hutchinson.^[4][5][6]

Notes