The Confederation of African Football have announced that a Cameroonian refereeing trio led by Alioum Alioum Neant Sidi who took charge of the first game of the 2019 AFCON will be in charge of the last game of the tournament this Friday at the Cairo International Stadium in Egypt.
A team of match officials led by 37 year old Alioum Neant Sidi of Cameroon who turn 37 on the date of this announcement will have two of his compatriots in Evarist Menkouande as first assistant and Elvis Guy Noupoue Ngouegoue as second assistant.The fourth official being Eric Arnaud Otogo Castine from Gabon.
The above quartet where in charge of the quarter final game pitting Tunisia to Madagascar, they will all need to do as well as they have done in this tournament.
Waleed Ahmed Ali of Sudan is the 3rd assistant referee for the final while a full team of VAR officials has been put in place by CAF.
The VAR team is led by Milot Benoit from France assisted by Papa Bakary Gassama of the Gambia and South Africa’s Zakhele Thust Siwela.
It will be the fourth game in the competition for the trusted Cameroon trio after an excellent display in the Egypt Versus Zimbabwe, Ivory Coast Versus Morocco games and the quarter final meeting of Madagascar versus Tunisia.
The refereeing team has three Cameroonians they are:
Referee:Alioum Neant Sidi
First Assistant Referee:MENKOUANDE Evariste
Second Assistant Referee: Noupoue Elvis.
Alioum has appeared at senior AFCON tournament and already have the know-how of managing a final.
He was in charge of the 2015 AFCON final as Ivory Coast beat Ghana on post match penalties to win that edition of the competition. He equally officiated the first leg of the 2011 CAF Champions League Final.
It has been a wonderful year for the 37 year old,. In February this year, the Maroua native who is also an Airforce Officer got married to his long time lover Hadidatou Yougouda.
Alioum a father of 1, tried his hands in playing Football as a young man but quickly moved to his best fit refereeing role. His love to be in the game first gave him a playing Licence for Kohi of Maroua before switched to the whistling role. Promoted to the League one Championship in Cameroon 14 years ago,Ref Alioum as he is popularly called became a FIFA referee in 2008 and has appeared at 6 World Cups of different Categories and participated in 8 AFCON tournaments amongst other competitions.
Menkouande Evariste shall be the first assistant and Noupoue Elvis, second assistant respectively.
Otogo Eric Arnaud of Gabon who will serve as the fourth official in the game.
It will be the first TIME Senegal is facing Algeria in the AFCON final but a second time they are clashing in this tournament as Senegal lost to Algeria in the group stage of the tournament.
Angu Lesley in Cairo.
