Sport / Football
Joanna Charaktis is one of three Greek Australians who will be a FIFA International Referee in 2025. Photo: Supplied
Joanna Charaktis, George Lakrindis and Andrew Meimarakis have been named on the 2025 FIFA International Referee Lists.
All three are assistant referees (AR) while Charaktis is also a video match official.
They are included in the batch of 31 Australian match officials to be appointed.
Charaktis started refereeing in 2009 and as of the end of the 2023/24 A-Leagues seasons, she’s officiated 80 total A-Leagues matches.
She was an AR at the 2023 FIFA Women’s World Cup, 2024 Paris Olympics and for the semi-final at the 2024 AFC U23 Men’s Asian Cup in Qatar.
Recently she was part of Australian football history as part of the first ever all-female referee team to officiate a professional men’s match.
Lakrindis started in 2000 and as of the end of 2023/24 he’s officiated 186 ALM matches. This includes five finals series appearances.
He has been a FIFA match official since 2016 which his honours including FIFA Assistant Referee 2016, AFC Elite Assistant Referee 2017, 2020 Tokyo Olympics Final, AFC Cup Final 2022, Asian Champions League Semi Final 2021 and Australia Cup Final 2015.
Meimarkais started refereeing in 2011 and has officiated 81 ALM matches as of the end of 2023/24 season.
He has officiated the Australia Cup Final – Macarthur FC v Sydney United 58 (Oct 1, 2022), 2016 NPL VIC Grand Final and NYL Grand Final (2017, 2018).
