Baldomero Toledo (born February 6, 1970) is a Mexican-born American soccer referee. He has been a

Major League Soccer Major League Soccer (MLS) is a men's professional soccer league sanctioned by the United States Soccer Federation, which represents the sport's highest level in the United States. The league comprises 29 teams—26 in the U.S. and 3 in Canada ...

referee since 2004 and a

FIFA FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' ( French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...

referee from 2007 to 2017."Baldomero Toledo"
. ''proreferees.com''.

Career

Toledo was born in Mexico, where he started refereeing at the age of 15 in local school leagues. Later, he moved to

Southern California Southern California (commonly shortened to SoCal) is a geographic and Cultural area, cultural region that generally comprises the southern portion of the U.S. state of California. It includes the Los Angeles metropolitan area, the second most po ...

and continued working as a referee in local leagues until he made it to the U.S. Soccer academies. He was the referee for the

2008 MLS Cup MLS Cup 2008 was the 13th edition of the MLS Cup, the championship match of Major League Soccer (MLS). The soccer match took place on November 23, 2008, at the Home Depot Center in Carson, California, near Los Angeles. It was contested betw ...

, the

2010 MLS Cup MLS Cup 2010, the 15th edition of Major League Soccer's MLS Cup, championship match, was played between the Colorado Rapids and FC Dallas to decide the champion of the 2010 Major League Soccer season, 2010 season. The championship was played at ...

, and the 2016 Lamar Hunt U.S. Open Cup Final. US Soccer hired Toledo as a full-time referee in 2007. Toledo was selected to referee at the

2011 CONCACAF Gold Cup The 2011 CONCACAF Gold Cup was the 11th edition of the CONCACAF Gold Cup competition, and the 21st CONCACAF regional championship overall in CONCACAF's 50 years of existence. The United States was the host nation. The competition started on June ...

. In 2017, Toledo was involved in a controversial situation when he refereed a friendly match between

Mexico Mexico (Spanish: México), officially the United Mexican States, is a country in the southern portion of North America. It is bordered to the north by the United States; to the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; to the southeast by Guatema ...

and

Ghana Ghana (; tw, Gaana, ee, Gana), officially the Republic of Ghana, is a country in West Africa. It abuts the Gulf of Guinea and the Atlantic Ocean to the south, sharing borders with Ivory Coast in the west, Burkina Faso in the north, and To ...

, that Mexico won 1–0. Ghana's manager at the time,

James Kwesi Appiah James Kwesi Appiah (born 30 June 1960), also known as Akwasi Appiah, is a Ghanaian football coach and former player who played as a left back. He is currently the head coach of Kenpong Football Academy. Early life and education Appiah was born ...

, complained that Toledo was assigned to the game: "I was really, really shocked that in a game like this they would allow a Mexican to be the center referee when we were playing Mexico", despite the fact that Toledo had worked in the United States for decades. Toledo retired following the

2021 MLS season The 2021 Major League Soccer season was the 26th season of Major League Soccer (MLS), the top professional soccer league in the United States and Canada. The 2021 season included the addition of Austin FC as an expansion club, which took the l ...

References

External links

*
archive
* * * * 1970 births Living people American soccer referees Major League Soccer referees CONCACAF Champions League referees CONCACAF Gold Cup referees Copa América referees {{US-footy-bio-stub