On January 15th, FIFA announced the referee list for the World Club Cup in Moroccan on its official website. International referees MA Ning and FU Ming and international assistant referees ZHOU Fei and ZHANG Cheng were on the list. This was the first time that a referee team from China officiated the tournament. In this World Club Cup, six referee teams (three-person a team) and eight video assistant referees from five intercontinental football associations were selected to be the match officials. All four AFC referees were from China. Among them, ZHANG Cheng, a teacher from the International Football Institute of Tongjil, was selected as an assistant referee.

ZHANG Cheng (first left)