Zachari Zeegelaar

Zeegelaar was born at Diakonessenhuis in Paramaribo to Carmen Sordjo and Orlando Zeegelaar, both deceased.^[1][2] He spent much of his childhood in Zanderij and was raised, along with his two sisters, Raquel and Chawila, by his mother alone, which he is proud of. Raquel has played for the club S.V. Transvaal and the Suriname women's national football team.^[1]

Zeegelaar was part of the Transvaal team, playing for a club in Lelydorp,^[1][3] but his mother forced him to stop when he was 16 because he had poor grades at school.^[3] At the age of 21, he moved back to Paramaribo to play football.^[3] After he was shown a red card during a match, he spoke to the referee, who said that Zeegelaar understood the rules and should take a refereeing course. He enrolled in a Surinamese Football Association referee course when he was 23.^[1] After earning his FIFA badge as an assistant referee in 2014, Zeegelaar officiated in the Suriname President's Cup and the US tournament Dallas Cup.^[1] He worked with pitch referee Enrico Wijngaarde,^[1] one of the most internationally recognized referees from Suriname.^[4] Zeegelar has taken part in four editions of the CONCACAF Gold Cup, including the tournament of 2025.^{[5][6][7][8][9]}

In 2022, Zeegelaar was appointed as an assistant referee for the 2022 FIFA World Cup in Qatar,^[3][10] officiating two group stage matches under lead referee Iván Barton of El Salvador: Germany vs Japan for Group E and Brazil vs Switzerland for Group G.^{[2][11][12][13]} He served in two matches in 2020 to the Summer Olympics in Tokyo for the men's football tournament.^[2][14]