David Socha (born September 27, 1938) is a former soccer referee from the United States. He is best known for supervising two matches in the

FIFA World Cup The FIFA World Cup, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the ' ( FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The tournament ha ...

, one in 1982 and one in

1986 The year 1986 was designated as the International Year of Peace by the United Nations. Events January * January 1 **Aruba gains increased autonomy from the Netherlands by separating from the Netherlands Antilles. **Spain and Portugal enter ...

.FIFA
"Match Report - Korea Republic - Italy 2:3 (0:1)"
. June 10, 1986. Retrieved on June 5, 2013. The 1982 match between

Scotland Scotland (, ) is a Countries of the United Kingdom, country that is part of the United Kingdom. Covering the northern third of the island of Great Britain, mainland Scotland has a Anglo-Scottish border, border with England to the southeast ...

and

New Zealand New Zealand ( mi, Aotearoa ) is an island country in the southwestern Pacific Ocean. It consists of two main landmasses—the North Island () and the South Island ()—and over 700 smaller islands. It is the sixth-largest island count ...

marked the second ever World Cup match supervised by an American referee after Henry Landauer in 1970. Socha played in the semiprofessional leagues of the United States and two seasons for

Portsmouth Portsmouth ( ) is a port and city in the ceremonial county of Hampshire in southern England. The city of Portsmouth has been a unitary authority since 1 April 1997 and is administered by Portsmouth City Council. Portsmouth is the most dens ...

in the 1950s. Socha is known to have served as a FIFA referee during the period from 1979 to 1986. His other international events include the 1984 Olympic tournament in Los Angeles and qualifying matches for the 1982 and

World Cups. In the NASL, Socha was the head referee for

Soccer Bowl '82 Soccer Bowl '82 was the championship final of the 1982 NASL season. The New York Cosmos advanced to the Soccer Bowl for the third consecutive year and took on the Seattle Sounders in a rematch of Soccer Bowl '77. The match was played on Septe ...

, and for game 1 of

Soccer Bowl '84 Soccer Bowl '84, also known as Soccer Bowl Series '84, was the championship of the 1984 NASL season, and the last championship of the original NASL. In a departure from previous years, it was a best-of-three series between the Chicago Sting and t ...

. He was also an assistant referee at

Soccer Bowl '78 Soccer Bowl '78 was the North American Soccer League's championship final for the 1978 season. It was the fourth NASL championship under the Soccer Bowl name. The match was played at Giants Stadium in the New York City suburb of East Ruther ...

.TVS Broadcast footage

References

External links

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Profile
1938 births American soccer referees FIFA World Cup referees Living people 1986 FIFA World Cup referees 1982 FIFA World Cup referees Olympic football referees Sportspeople from Springfield, Massachusetts Soccer players from Massachusetts Portsmouth F.C. players American soccer players American expatriate soccer players Expatriate footballers in England Men's association football players not categorized by position {{US-footy-bio-stub