Referee who sold matches to officiate EURO 2024 semi-final between England and Netherlands

EURO organizers have appointed referee Felix Zwayer (Germany) to officiate the semi-final match between England and the Netherlands, which will take place at 2am on June 11 at Signal Iduna Park. This decision quickly received negative reactions from Three Lions fans.

Twenty years ago, Mr. Zwayer was involved in a bribery scandal and match-fixing in the German second division. The German Football Association (DFB) opened an investigation and discovered that Zwayer had received 300 euros (8.2 million VND) from referee Robert Hoyzer. The two men worked together to fix the match between Wuppertal and Werder Bremen B.

When the case was exposed, Mr. Robert Hoyzer was sentenced to 2.5 years in prison, permanently suspended. In 2006, Mr. Zwayer was banned from practicing medicine for 6 months but did not have to serve any prison time. He received a lighter sentence because he actively contributed to the investigation.

The German referee then returned to work. He often refereed major matches in the domestic league and UEFA competitions. In 2024, the 43-year-old referee was assigned to referee a number of matches at EURO 2024. The Daily Mail wrote: "UEFA did not change their decision, although they carefully examined Mr. Zwayer's profile."

Mr. Zwayer officiated the match between Italy winning 2-1 against Albania, Türkiye losing 0-3 to Portugal and Romania winning 0-3 against the Netherlands. The referee is considered quite heavy-handed. He has issued 13 yellow cards in 3 matches, an average of 4.3 cards/match. In Group B of the 2023/24 Champions League, referee Zwayer officiated the match between Lens winning 2-1 against Sevilla, issuing 8 yellow cards and awarding each team 1 penalty.

In 2021, he made controversial decisions when refereeing the match between Dortmund and Bayern Munich in the Bundesliga. Zwayer denied Dortmund a penalty, before discovering Matt Hummels' handball, awarding Bayern a penalty. Robert Lewandowski scored, helping the "Bavarian Tigers" defeat Dortmund, increasing the gap between the two teams to 4 points. This was the premise for Bayern to win the Bundesliga that year.

After the match, Jude Bellingham (who was playing for Dortmund at the time) said: "The organizers assigned a referee with a history of match-fixing to officiate the biggest match in German football. What else did they expect to happen?"

The English midfielder was later fined 40 thousand euros (1 billion VND) for his offensive statements against UEFA.

Mr Zwayer will referee the semi-final between England and the Netherlands. The winner will advance to the EURO 2024 final, where they will face either Spain or France.

"We respect UEFA no matter who they decide to referee. I think Mr. Zwayer's refereeing will not affect the result of the match. We need to focus on the match," Luke Shaw said before the semi-final.