World Cup Hero: Coffi Codjia
It is a tradition of mine that every World Cup I pick a random team to support. By now, you might be aware that my choice is Angola. The Palancas are my team and I look forward to seeing them lift the trophy in Berlin in July. Another World Cup tradition I have is to pick a hero and love the heck out of him, while annoying the heck out of my friends by talking about my hero all the time. Just hearing the name Gheorghe Hagi, for example, makes me feel all warm and tingly. Instead of waiting for the tournament to unfold to pick a hero this year, I have already adopted one. He is Benin’s connection to the world’s biggest party.
When the list of the World Cup referees was released a few years back the first name that leaped out on the page was Coffi Codjia. The name itself is kind of cool, but the fact that he is from Benin really caught my interest.
Wedged in between Togo and Nigeria like a piece of corn stuck in your teeth, Benin has roughly 8 million people and only one of them has ever worked at the World Cup.
Coffi Codjia was selected to take part in the 2002 World Cup where he ended up serving as a fourth official for the match between Spain and Slovenia. A week later he had his moment in the sun by serving as the head referee for the Costa Rica-Turkey match. My hero proceeded to hand out five yellow cards and to take control of a match featuring those uncontrollable players from Costa Rica and Turkey.
As we approach Codjia’s second turn at World Cup officiating, I think it is only appropriate that we get to know a little more about the man behind the legend.
- His full name is Bonaventure Coffi Codjia, but his mates simply call him Coffi.
- His father, Alphonse Codjia Coffi, was also an international referee.
- Coffi was a good footballer until he suffered an injury in 1986.
- He will earn $40,000 for refereeing in the World Cup.
- He is trained as a maritime transport investigator.
Lest you think he lets refereeing get in the way of his day job (whatever the heck it means to be a maritime transport investigator), he says that the “frequent absences do not impact negatively on the company’s evolution.”
I am sure you will agree that Coffi Codjia’s story is a good one. I hope you will join me in the hero worshipping or at least tolerate the fact I will be writing about him a lot.
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Comments
By Mel | May 4th, 2006 at 4:30 pm 
It isn’t every day that you see a referee listed as a hero. I wonder how you’ll feel if he blows a call for Angola.
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By Mesto | May 4th, 2006 at 4:41 pm With Collina retired we all need a new hero in the middle. Coffi it is…until he screws us.
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By Joka | May 4th, 2006 at 4:54 pm Coffi Codjia… He will do a fine job.
By Trent | May 4th, 2006 at 5:10 pm I ordered a Coffi Codija once at Starbucks, and it set me back 8 bones. What’s so heroic about that?
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By Trent | May 4th, 2006 at 5:10 pm Oh, I think i misread your post. Yeah, he looks like a great guy. My bad.
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By Bob | May 4th, 2006 at 5:32 pm Trust me, after this World Cup there will likely be drinks named after him at Starbucks. They might even rename Benin in his honour.
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By Bense | May 4th, 2006 at 5:51 pm And he might be the worst possible referee at the WC, being there as a conscience-calming african referee that almost has 3rd league abilities.
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By Lazy Assistants Cost Referees World Cup Spots - FIFA World Cup 2006 - World Cup 2006 Blog | May 8th, 2006 at 3:46 pm [...] Fortunately, World Cup Blog hero Coffi Codjia is fit as a fiddle and his slacker assistants managed to perform 20 situps in 60 seconds or whatever it takes to be deemed a fit referee these days. [...]
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By Jamaica lose Friendly, World Cup Referee - FIFA World Cup 2006 - World Cup 2006 Blog | May 29th, 2006 at 12:18 pm [...] The replacements for Prendergast and crew have not been named yet. For those keeping track at home, we’re down to 21 referees and 42 assistant referees, including World Cup Blog hero Coffi Codjia who remains in tip-top shape. Fancy a flutter? Free £25 Bet on World Cup 2006 Category: World Cup 2006, Group E Tags: Ghana, Jamaica, referees, friendlies, coffi codjia, peter prendergast, anthony garwood, joseph taylor, Tag Index « Ronaldowatch™: He’s not a Fat Bull, for now | Home | If you found “Jamaica lose Friendly, World Cup Referee” useful or interesting, please share it with others by bookmarking it at the following sites: .wp-notable img {border: none;margin-left:5px;} Leave a Reply [...]
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By Coffi Codja to ref Ecuador v. Costa Rica - FIFA World Cup 2006 - Ecuador World Cup Team Blog | June 13th, 2006 at 11:22 pm [...] You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site. Leave aReply [...]
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By don | June 23rd, 2006 at 5:45 pm I have not seen any other games refereed by Coffi Codjia, but in the Spain vs. Saudi Arabia game in the 2006 world cup, he has done a fundamentally BAD job. He made both bad calls and bad non-calls. Mind you, I am a Spain fan, but, even then, I feel that he has been fundamentally unfair to the Saudi teams. What a bad referee.
By sean | June 24th, 2006 at 5:18 am Yup. Totally agreed that he didn’t do a good job in the spain-saudi match. He disallowed 2 clear-cut penalties (one for each side)!!
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