2021-2022 UEFA Referee Discussion [R]

In the linked article, he said that a big, successful international tournament was missing from his CV, and with this Euro he felt his career is now complete. He does not think he can repeat the level of preparation and performance that he was able to give at this Euro. He plans to continue his remaining two seasons in the Bundesliga (according to the current age limit of 47).

The article also points out that he is the first person to referee five matches at a Euro.

 

I assume you mean Belgium v Portugal here.

For clarity, Vincic's performance on Belgium v Italy was absolutely fine.

 

Anders Frisk handling four matches at sixteen-team EURO 2004 was de facto the same achievement I'd say.

 

I'd certainly agree with that.

Personally, I think he was one of the best European Referees to not get appointed to a major final - partly due to Mr Mourinho, of course!

If not for that shameful episode, I think he would have been among the favourites for the latter stages, and perhaps even the final, of WC2006.

 

Frisk did get the Euro 2000 Final between France and Italy and it was basically his turn to ge the Champions League Final. He was the last of the Collina, Urs Meier, and Kim Milton Neilson group of referees to not get the CL Final.

The three above did the last three matches of the 2002 World Cup. Although I think there appointments were basically forced because of the controversy surrounding the Korea vs Italy and Korea vs Spain matches which involved non-European referees.

They also were doing every big CL match for the last 5 years or so.

Collina got it in 1999, Meier in 2002, Neilson did it in 2004. Frisk was basically next. He was gonna do the Final that year in Istanbul.

The Chelsea vs Barcelona tie was his test. If he got through without incident or retirement he would have done the Final in Istanbul. Mejuto Gonzalez's appointment basically came out of nowhere that year and that was because Frisk retired.

Many people did consider Frisk to be the favorite for the WC Final and he might have been on merit or ability, but I don't think he would have gotten it simply because of the fact it was all European referees in 2002.

You have all an European Final Four in 2006 and not one European referee on any of the three matches? Now the three referees they did select were probably the three best referees at that World Cup.

 

So Cakir, Brych and Kuipers won't be Qatar?
if that is the case, looking ahead to Qatar, the European pool of referees might be the "weakest" its been from an experience standpoint as I can remember.

 

To be fair, the fact that there were no European Referees appointed to the final three games at WC2006 despite there being all European sides left in the tournament can be a little misleading.

Three of the top UEFA Referees there were from countries in the semis, so that eliminated them from consideration. Add to that, Poll and Ivanov had got themselves eliminated, so there were only four others possible, though apart from Cantalejo, I can't remember who, if any, were kept for the latter stages. I would suggest, however, that had Frisk been there, he may very well have featured.

Cleary lots of things before and during the tournament would have affected all of this, but knowing how highly he was regarded by the "powers that be" during that period, it is very safe to say that he would have been a strong contender for the Final in 2006.

 

A couple of things here. Firstly, in its current format, UEFA has only had 9 or 10 Referees selected for the WC Finals, and that is likely to be the number in Qatar. Secondly, there is a much shorter gap, obviously, between the Euros and WC this time around.

That all being the case, I can't see the list of UEFA Referees in Qatar being anything other than a subset of what was at the Euros, with possibly one "new" arrival.

I think MassRef's list is pretty close for the top five - though I don't think either of us is convinced about Orsato - and I do believe that Cakir will come back as he does not have some of the "issues" with FIFA that he has with UEFA. If Kuipers does retire (I believe he is), that only leaves 3 or maybe 4 slots to fill. Given the compressed timeframe, I don't think they will look much beyond Hategan, Karasev, Seibert, Skomina and Marciniak. That would be your 9 or 10.

So, for UEFA, I don't think the concern is so much Qatar 2022 - I think the real challenge is going to be Euro 2024, where you need around 20 officials. Right now, that is looking like a tough challenge.

 

I think the 2006 World Cup had the lowest and it might have been from an experienced standpoint the weakest.

Part of it was the fact that Rosetti and Cantalejo were basically brought in at the last minute due to the Italian #1 and probably #2 choice being implicated in the Calciopoli scandal.

Cantalejo only went because one of Mejuto Gonzalez's ARs failed a fitness test so the whole crew scratched.

Kyros Vassaras who was getting big matches in the Champions League was supposed to go, but either he or one of his ARs failed the fitness test so they were scrapped.

I think even the French representative, Eric Poulat, wasn't supposed to go originally. Alain Sars was probably the number one guy, but not selected for some reason. I don't remember why.

Rosetti and Cantalejo never did a CL knockout match coming into the World Cup.

Your CL semi-final and Final referees for the 2006 season were Ivanov, Markus Merk, Alain Sars and Konrad Plautz.

The Final referee was Terje Hauge. Only Ivanov and Merk were at the World Cup.

In 2005, your semi-final and Final referees were Vassaras, Alain Sars, Lubos Michel, Terje Hauge. Mejuto Gonzalez did the Final.

Only Lubos Michel went to the World Cup.

Busacca had yet to do a CL knockout match going into that World Cup.

De Bleeckere only did two and it was round of 16 and quarter final.

The French referee, Eric Poulat only had one knockout match in the CL and that was a round of 16.

Basically your most experienced referees were Merk, Graham Poll and Lubos Michel.

From a tournament experience standpoint, only Poll, Merk, Michel and Ivanov had been to a major tournament. Poll and Merk both had been to Euros and a World Cup. Michel and Ivanov were at the Euros in 2004 and both did a knockout match.

Michel went to the 2002 World Cup and only did some group stage matches.

The 2014 group of officials from UEFA didn't have much prior World Cup experience, but you had four officials that had already done a CL Final (Webb, Rizzoli, Proenca, and Kuipers).

Brych and Cakir had already done CL semi-finals.

Rizzoli went to Euro 2012 and could have gotten the Final if Italy wasn't there. Proenca did the Final instead. Cakir did a Euro 2012 semi-final.

So in a long way of saying, I think 2006 was the weakest UEFA class of referees.

 

Probably a fair assessment.

 

Very good summary - would only add that each referee team had three pre-selected ARs, two in the trio and a reserve. For instance Poll's reserve was Michael Tingey, Mejuto's was Yuste Jímenez eg.

In the cases of Vassáras, Mejuto, two of the three ARs failed the test and hence those teams were rejected (Greek ref said in an interview we published some months ago that the two failing ARs ran the 6sec sprint in 6.01 ...).

When you add Prendergast, Batres and of course De Santis/Rosetti you remember just how much of a mess the first ever WC with pre-selection actually was!

 

The UEFA Referee Committee have decided to make no changes to their classifications of Referees at this time.

Therefore, the first opportunity for promotion/demotion will be at the end of the year.

And, yes, Kuipers is still on the list.

 

I think that's a pretty good summary, and not really much I can add to that.

With regard to the Siebert question, I don't think I have seen anything written down about limits on numbers, but I think it would be a hard sell to put a fifth German into the Elite category, when England and Italy between them only have three.

And, once you make a blanket statement that you are not going to make any changes, you can't then start making exceptions - when do you stop?

December will be interesting. I do think Mateu Lahoz will come off, and Skomina may well too. I have also heard some rumblings about Grinfeeld, but I suspect he will be safe. Who comes up? Again, you are probably right with Ekberg, Hernandez Hernandez and Jovanovic, despite his gaff in Tokyo - no one in UEFA really cares about Olympics, tbh, as we have discussed before.

Strangely, I think the more interesting bit about movement in December will be further down the lists. As I mentioned before, UEFA are quite relaxed about WC2022, but there is more than a little concern about the pool they will have to choose from for Euro 2024, so the movement below the Elite level should be interesting - who is making their move to get into that list?

 

I think with the WC only 16 months away, Cakir will hang around.

And, I'm not sure if either of his countrymen have enough support quite yet.

 

About 2:29:00 of this video. Andorran team in extra time, which is quite rare that they even get close to advancing, against an Albanian side. Is this just one of those where the ref didn't want to give them two cracks at the apple (played advantage and they missed, so couldn't go back and give the PK)? . How about the linked circle hug of dissent after he doesn't give it?