Ismail Elfath

And as KUT's Jimmy Moss reports, he's now leaving the profession that he loves to give back to the people and the city that he loves.

Through the years, Ismail El-Fath built working relationships with some of the biggest superstars of his sport, powerful political players, and some pretty wealthy people.

But from the top of the sporting world, he would humbly return to Austin, Texas.

Ismail El-Fath is a soccer referee, and not just any referee.

He has achieved more than any other American soccer official.

In July, he became the first to lead an All-American referee crew in a FIFA World Cup semifinal.

And as for him?

You haven't even seen me ref, so give me a chance first and then tell me I suck.

made that said, I do it for the patch.

A big thanks to Ismail Elfath.

Congratulations on a long career and apparently a very long life ahead of him.

Thanks so much for sitting down with us.

That is a very fair punishment, in my opinion, and we still haven't seen a lot of refs do it, so I'm very glad Tori Pinto is setting a tone and saying, okay, I know you scored, I know you're on the road, I know you're going to waste time, I'm going to be watching you.

And she stuck to it and didn't just... play act like okay let's go through the the motions of me scolding you and you still wasting time and then nothing happens like elfath did the week before it's like nope i told you here we go yellow card

Yeah, she did not have the classic parent count to three.

One, two.

You know, to your point, it's frustrating when the thing we use as an escape from all of these things becomes the thing that kinda puts it right in front of you and makes it hard to look away, 'cause what do you look away to? Your favorite soccer team? 'Cause now you're trying to look away from your soccer team.

One thing that, uh, we do not wanna look away from is, um, the end of that match was the last professional refereeing match for Ismail Elfath, who is of the Austin area, has had a long, long, long career refereeing matches in MLS.

He reffed in the last two World Cups, including the round of 16 match between Japan and Croatia, as well as the semifinal in the most recent World Cup.

Uh, round of 16 in 2022.