opening matchday, while the youngest was 16-year-old Ifeanyi Chiejine of Nigeria. Match officials The 1999 tournament was the first World Cup to feature a pool of 31 referees composed entirely of women—the result of a directive from FIFA president Sepp Blatter approved the year before. They worked in groups during matching and training and were divided between two base facilities in Los Angeles and Washington, D.C. to reduce travel. Before the tournament, several coaches raised concerns over the quality of the referee pool, particularly those chosen for geographic diversity. By the end of the group stage, several coaches had complained of inconsistent fouls and offside calls. This was blamed in part on the referees being inexperienced with working in front of large crowds. In a post-tournament report, FIFA stated that the trial of all-female referees had been successful and that further development would produce better results in future tournaments. FIFA published the final list of referees on April 13, 1999. From this list, only Ghanaian assistant referee Juliana Akuteye did not officiate at the tournament. American referee Kari Seitz was selected in June as a replacement for another official who had been denied a travel visa to the United States. Preparations The organizing committee for the 1999 tournament was led by chairwoman Donna de Varona, a former Olympian swimmer and co-founder of the Women's Sports Foundation, and president Marla Messing, an attorney and protégé of U.S. soccer president Alan Rothenberg who had helped organize the 1994 men's World Cup in the United States. Headquartered in Century City, California, it had a $30 million budget for the tournament, a tenth of that for the men's tournament. It was partially funded by a $2.5 million loan from the U.S. Soccer Foundation using profits from the 1994 men's World Cup. Messing submitted the committee's business plan for the tournament in September 1998, two days before giving birth. The event attracted funding from several major corporate sponsors who had previously shied away from women's soccer, including: McDonald's, Coca-Cola, Fujifilm, Gillette, and Allstate; the companies, however, did not promote the tournament through advertising and tie-in campaigns like they did for the 1994 men's World Cup. The tournament's official equipment sponsor was Adidas, who supplied the match balls and other equipment. A new Women's World Cup Trophy was commissioned for the tournament, designed by William Sawaya of Sawaya & Moroni. It cost $30,000 to design and