The football association chose Russia's Sergey Karasev to be one of the 36 match officials that will referee the World Cup matches together with his compatriots Anton Averianov and Tikhon Kalugin, who would be assistant referees.

"I'm afraid it's not a time to say why referees here or why assistant referees are not here. Of course, we cannot bring all the referees, we need to bring the referees we need here and we made this decision. We are convinced that it was a correct decision. We are confident that we've worked correctly in the selection process and the referees who are here deserved to be here," Collina told journalists.

Russia will host the FIFA World Cup from June 14 to July 15, with the games set to be held in a total of 11 cities.