Baldomero Toledo (born February 6, 1970) is a Mexican-born American soccer referee.[1] He has been a Major League Soccer referee since 2004 and a FIFA referee from 2007 to 2017.[2][3]
Toledo was born in Mexico, where he started refereeing at the age of 15 in local school leagues. Later, he moved to Southern California and continued working as a referee in local leagues until he made it to the U.S. Soccer academies.[4]
US Soccer hired Toledo as a full-time referee in 2007.[6] Toledo was selected to referee at the 2011 CONCACAF Gold Cup.[7]
In 2017, Toledo was involved in a controversial situation when he refereed a friendly match between Mexico and Ghana, that Mexico won 1–0. Ghana's manager at the time, James Kwesi Appiah, complained that Toledo was assigned to the game: "I was really, really shocked that in a game like this they would allow a Mexican to be the center referee when we were playing Mexico", despite the fact that Toledo had worked in the United States for decades.[8]