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

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly ...

referee A referee is an official, in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The official tasked with this job may be known by a variety of other tit ...

. He is known in Mexico as Armando Archundia, but appears as Benito Archundia in

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 ...

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 Greece,, or , romanized: ', officially the Hellenic Republic, is a country in Southeast Europe. It is situated on the southern tip of the Balkans, and is located at the crossroads of Europe, Asia, and Africa. Greece shares land borders wi ...

. Archundia is the all-time leader in appearances at 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 has ...

, being one of only two referees who have been appointed for 8 matches, the other being

Joël Quiniou Joël Quiniou (born 11 July 1950) is a former football referee from France. He is best known for supervising eight matches in the FIFA World Cup, one in 1986, three in 1990 and four in 1994. Career He supervised eight matches in the FIFA World ...

. 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 Ravshan Sayfiddinovich Irmatov ( uz, Ravshan Sayfiddinovich Ermatov, Равшан Сайфиддинович Эрматов; born August 9, 1977) is an Uzbek professional football referee. He officiated in the Uzbek League from 2000-2019 and i ...

in 2010. In addition, he has supervised the final of the

FIFA Club World Cup The FIFA Club World Cup is an international men's association football competition organised by the ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' (FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The competition was first contested in 200 ...

twice, in

2005 File:2005 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: Hurricane Katrina in the Gulf of Mexico; the Funeral of Pope John Paul II is held in Vatican City; " Me at the zoo", the first video ever to be uploaded to YouTube; Eris was discover ...

and

2009 File:2009 Events Collage V2.png, From top left, clockwise: The vertical stabilizer of Air France Flight 447 is pulled out from the Atlantic Ocean; Barack Obama becomes the first African American to become President of the United States; Protests ...

. He originally planned to retire at the end of the

2010 FIFA World Cup , image = 2010 FIFA World Cup.svg , size = 200px , caption = ''Ke Nako. (Tswana and Sotho for "It's time") Celebrate Africa's Humanity'It's time. Celebrate Africa's Humanity'' (English)''Dis tyd. Vier Afrika se mensd ...

, but decided to continue for at least another year. He was the referee in the grand opening of the

Estadio Omnilife The Estadio Akron, formerly known as the Estadio Omnilife and Estadio Chivas (''Estadio Chivas'', ), is a multipurpose stadium that is used mostly for football matches. It is the home of Liga MX side C.D. Guadalajara. It is part of the JVC compl ...

, which featured

Guadalajara Guadalajara ( , ) is a metropolis in western Mexico and the capital of the state of Jalisco. According to the 2020 census, the city has a population of 1,385,629 people, making it the 7th largest city by population in Mexico, while the Guadalaj ...

Manchester United Manchester () is a city in Greater Manchester, England. It had a population of 552,000 in 2021. It is bordered by the Cheshire Plain to the south, the Pennines to the north and east, and the neighbouring city of Salford to the west. The ...

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

lawyer A lawyer is a person who practices law. The role of a lawyer varies greatly across different legal jurisdictions. A lawyer can be classified as an advocate, attorney, barrister, canon lawyer, civil law notary, counsel, counselor, solicit ...

and

economist An economist is a professional and practitioner in the social sciences, social science discipline of economics. The individual may also study, develop, and apply theories and concepts from economics and write about economic policy. Within this ...

World Cup

World Cup 2006

Archundia made his first

World Cup A world cup is a global sporting competition in which the participant entities – usually international teams or individuals representing their countries – compete for the title of world champion. The event most associated with the concept i ...

appearance in the

2006 FIFA World Cup The 2006 FIFA World Cup, also branded as Germany 2006, was the 18th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial international football world championship tournament. It was held from 9 June to 9 July 2006 in Germany, which had won the right to host th ...

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 Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

and

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

. 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).

World Cup 2010

His second World Cup appearance was in the

and refereed a total of three matches. His final game was the third place play-off between Germany and Uruguay.

Notes

References

External links

* * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Archundia, Benito 1966 births Living people Sportspeople from the State of Mexico Mexican football referees 20th-century Mexican lawyers 20th-century Mexican economists Copa América referees 2010 FIFA World Cup referees 2006 FIFA World Cup referees CONCACAF Gold Cup referees CONCACAF Champions League referees 21st-century Mexican lawyers