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its the UEFA referee committee. and to be eligible, refs have to be on the FIFA list, so the FIFA referee committee is in it as well. the european composition of these committees looks like this:
UEFA: Chairman Rosetti (Ita), Carballo (Esp), Damkova (Cze), Sajn (Slo), +1
FIFA: Chairman Collina (Ita), Rosetti Ita), Rizzoli (Ita), Damkova (Cze)
Damkova is the wife of Roman Berbr. go ahead google him, and "Match Fixing"
Do they oversee ref misconduct ? He took a goal away from Czech that should earn him a reprimand and removal from tournament play . It was a bad call . Could not the VAR assist at that point?
From my understanding VAR did get involved but went with the Ref. He is though by far the worst ref of a single match I have ever seen, talk about no concept of what a foul actually is...
Worst of all he is the Ref for the final match
Are they the real people on each of them committees? As if so that instantly screams fixed... In no other industry does anyone person work for 2 separate associations.
3 of the 4 chair persons for each association being the same is only done so they set the laws, rules and regulations and they only change when they want. It should be 4 different people on each of the association boards...
Favouritism and fixing is as rife as we all thought then
Kovacs is a fairly good international ref however he has episodes.
He is widely known for indirectly helping his favorite team. I suspect he tried to help Romania and Hungary.
Wasn't a Hungarian ref in that match a conflict of interest? Everybody counted on Portugal defeating Georgia, so if Turkey beat Czechia, Hungary would advance.
It was a huge conflict of interest, but I believe UEFA looks at the passport, not ethnicity. Istvan Kovacs may be a Hungarian name but his passport is Romanian, he lives and referees in Romania, and represents Romania. What's worse is that a positive result for Turkey at the detriment of the Czech Republic would have helped both Romania and Hungary hugely, had Portugal not lost to Georgia. So Istvan Kovacs had a double conflict of interest.
> His father is of Hungarian descent and his mother is of German descent. He holds both a Romanian passport and a **Hungarian passport** at the same time.
From your own link.
Lol so you mean Czechs lost becuause of Ref. Their player was stupid to get a yellow in 10 mins what could referee do? He gave Czechs a free goal which was a clear foul. If this happened to big teams like England Italy Germany today UEFA was in under pressure and this Ref was out for his lifdtime
No, I don't mean the Czechs lost because of the ref. I meant exactly what I wrote. It was a question regarding the ref's dual citizenship and the outcome of this particular game potentially affecting both Hungary and Romania.
Well there were even direct examples. I cannot remember his name but Italy born Croatian Ref was assigned to Croatia game in previous tournament. Italians and Croatians can tell his name I think. I belive was something Ivan.
No I think the Hungarians were rooting for Turkey. Turkey won, why Czechia stayed at 1 point. If Portugal won, Georgia would also just have 1 point. So in that case Croatia (2p) and Czechia (1p) would have been the worst number 3s. And Hungary with 3 points would qualify. But I agree that this discussion about the ref is far-fetched. It's more likely that certain refs can't handle the pressure.
I’d actually like to know why pulling shirts is now within the laws of the game.
Seen it CONSTANTLY throughout the tournament and it appears to be no longer an offence/foul.
I watch the coverage from UK and ITV has this UEFA referee woman. She is horrible. Defending nasty tackles while saying the simplest of touches are fouls
She also sees no issue with shirt pulling like today as apparently "it does not interfere with play"
I agree she is awful and you would not want her ever to ref a game, but has highlighted the problem the refs don't understand football and think they are right. A drastic change needs to happen to fix this issue not just fire the shit refs.
I am a referee in grassroots football and I can easily tell you now that at least in the lower levels: It's not always about being right but about pleasing one side without angering the other too much.
You don't even get the power as the referee. My first 2 months were shaky (anyone new wouldn't be perfect) but I recovered and my 2nd season was near flawless. I faced coaches with serious anger issues that made biased claims and made a big deal of every single good decision as they couldn't agree with a loss so they take it out on the refs... even if they lose like 7-0. Some coaches even lack the knowledge of basic football rules which has shocked me.
I saw horrific "blind" refs that were praised much more than me only as they pleased the more influencial side. Honestly it all seems is unfair or even corrupt 🤷♂️ I have seen no bribes but I have seen a nasty cheating ref making wrong decisions and laughing after the game to the coach of the team he was biased for. He had dirty tactics under his sleeve and I did not see rest of his games but he got promoted a season later
There is no level 2 course for refs. Just basic level 1 course training, the rest is just how you manage to climb a higher ladder and I can tell you now that it's certainly not always by being the perfect ref as we may think.
Most captains are sons of the coach in the grassroots teams even if they're terrible players, you fairly book them and sometimes it all kicks off. I think that says it all really
(I am not accusing anyone or anything in any way but anyone hanging around the grassroots level where the refs start off would see that there is something dodgy going on)
Anyway. I stay fair and true to myself. I don't care, i know my rulebook that I have studied for countless of weeks and hours and at least I have a clean concious unlike some blatant cheats
If somebody really wanted to fix this, they would apply Game theory concepts to refereeing. For example, the teams would have to delegate the referee and agree on whom to appoint jointly, as opposed to a third party entity with no accountability to the teams being the one to appoint match referees.
Very true. At first, I thought, cool, I don't mind a woman ref that knows her stuff, but it wasn't long until I noticed how terrible she is at making decisions. She is clueless to be really honest and yeah I agree. Something must be very wrong with how they train the referees or something else but a huge change is needed
To be fair to her she’s is just interpreting the law of the game, she does often say she agrees with the pundits, I certainly would not say she’s horrible and she does give an interesting insight from a VAR’s perspective.
I'm in Canada watching the same coverage and I'm happy to hear that others think the same about her as I do. On slow motion replays of clear fouls, which the ref whistled for a foul, she says "He's gone down rather easily there" while on other correct non-calls she states about a player that "He'll want to be careful to change his manner before he costs his team a penalty". But...he didn't commit a foul, and the replay she's commenting on shows it as such.
I feel like she's more concerned with speaking sternly than with being accurate.
Watching from Canada my main thought is "at least the refs dont let players get away with headbutts to the face in this tournament." Still, first win!!!
Very true analysis. It seems like she wants to be heard as if she knows what she's talking about and pretend that she cannot be wrong while my rating of her decisions is 3/10 and that's at best while being nice
i’m sorry if this is a dumb question but is there a reason why they don’t take refs specifically from nations that aren’t involved in the EURO cup? wouldn’t that just eliminate so much bias?
Because there is a huge overlap in football nations and experienced referees. Sure you could pick some from say Estonia. But they will not have the same resume as premier League / bundles Liga / serie A.
And on top of that I would assume there's gonna be a lot of politics behind it. Every nation will want to have their referees in, every referee will argue it's unfair, since Spanish/English/German ones would pretty much never get a chance to work as prestigious event in their life.
>could spell it out loud and clear why these referees were chosen, but it would get me banned
Is it because you woild be making massively unevidenced accusations about the integrity of the refs?
Yeah, maybe it shouldn't be said then, since ot would almost certainly be wrong.
To preface this - I don’t think the refs have done a good job at all
But shirt pulling is a really excellent example of why it’s so hard to ref the laws of the game and why it’s all such a mess
Shirt pulling is now a completely widespread practice in every league. If refs blew up every instance you’d have a period of several months where games would be severely disrupted and idiot pundits would talk about the game going soft.
So what you have now is basically refs using their judgment to just punish the most egregious instances of shirt pulling - but inevitably they fuck that up and it’s really inconsistent because it’s so subjective
Contact in the box and dissent are two other areas that sufffer from this same problem where referees are not really enforcing the laws they are using their judgment
At some point IFAB will need a fundamental review of the rules to try and create consistency around application of these sorts of rules. In many places the rules as written bear no relation to how football is actually played
If I were the referee I would just tell the teams before the game „first tug is free, second is yellow, third is red. And if you are unlucky and I miscount, the first is already yellow“
In my opinion this is fine, because I find tugging to be grossly unsportsmanlike.
You are not trying to get get the ball, you are JUST going for player. To me that always is a yellow
What a godawful showing by Kovacs. Not sure how many of you watch NBA basketball, but that was a Scott Foster-level ref job. Everyone is here to watch the refs, right!? 18 YELLOW CARDS and 2 REDS! CRIMINAL
Last Germany game as well. Happy they won, but I thought bought refs not in favour for Germany. Ruins the entertainment and the drive for football.
Edit: spelling
Wait they didn’t win (my fault, oh gosh now I feel bad) but my point stands. (no hate to refs but truly weird in when they give the cards or just break the flow of the game, how is it normally?)
Tho from seeing the refs pov: players should do more clean football but than again we aren’t on the field nor with the same passion and don’t have the adrenaline kick…
I don’t know mate. This year, I am just surprised that Turkey is going further. I just hope the young stars can get more experience without having sustaining injuries…but all of the good players are mostly injured in some shape or form…
The Czech game at least gave us this wonderful pinned comment [from the official fox sports yt channel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDo8EelGpLY): "Unbelievable performance from the referee!"
Every single match I hear the name of the refs more than I hear names of players means the ref is doing a bad job, and its honestly more than half of the games.
You should not even remember their names but they are the main thing I remember from this tournament so far.
Don't think the referee was good, there were many points to argue. But this one in particular wasn't, it was no where near a foul. Maybe you still think that a goalkeeper has special protection within the six yard box? Not the case.
Yeah, I don’t think it was foul. Czech player didn’t even notice the goalie until he lost the ball. Mert should have punched the ball instead of trying to catch it there.
He was free to run down the wing into space if not impeded
The rules don't specify a goal attack, only "a promising attack, except where the referee awards a penalty kick".
A winger being free to run into space and cross into the box is a promising attack therefore justifies a caution.
It’s just the usual “letting the game flow” approach to international tournaments. The teams have had three games to adjust. Anyone appalled by this tournament is clearly too young to remember World Cup 2002, amongst others.
There is “letting the game flow” and then there is clear dishonesty, I’m fully on board with not stopping the game for every slight push (which they do all the time anyway) but this is something else
As a Romanian we are very used to be mad at the refs. We have not forgotten Urs Myers who had a habit of dictating matches against us.
Today Romania 🇷🇴 was very favored by the refs and our only Romanian ref was a nightmare on the field!
Honestly people will complain about referees no matter what. I have thought the standard of refereeing has generally been excellent this tournament. It is only the last few games where referees have started to lose control of some games but overall I think the decision making in the group stages has been very good. I think a big contributor to poor decision making is diving and faking injury- referees are quite rightly sceptical about the honesty of alot of players these days. I have some sympathy for referees because players have gotten so good at conning officials now.
It seems to me that adding a second, or even third referee, to each match would help. A team off officials would police themselves more consistently than one individual might (theoretically), making calls more consistent (again, in theory).
Basketball uses three officials on a much smaller court and with less than half the players.
I don't know, just a thought.
I found it funny during Germany Vs Switzerland when the commentators were criticising the linesman, and then I noticed him later and he's actually on the pitch.
I only watched the first half but the first Czeck red was clear as day. 2 ungly fauls = red card. Don't know how out of hand the game got after that. Maybe 18 yellows were justifiable, but if so the ref lost controll of the teams. 18 yellows means bad ref either way.
It's normal UEFA bullshittery to put a referee from countries like Georgia or Lichtenstein in major tournaments. How many big games do these guys officiate in their respective countries - none. It's nothing new - we can go all the way back to the Ovrebo debacle in 2009 (Chelsea - Barcelona)
The ref lost control after giving a "soft" second yellow in just 20 minutes and made some very bad decisions but I would say that the players didn't help the referee's cause by arguing and playing physical a lot of times
Refs in the qualifying rounds where even worse
We Greeks were playing vs France with lahoz as the red(quite a famous piece of sh@t)and gave France a penalty which our keeper saved and because 1 player stepped into the box a millisecond early it was repeated.But the most attrocious was the one in the home game vs the Netherlands van dijk fouled our player and that cr@ppy b@stard(dont remember the refs name please someone comment it)gave it a penalty.Our keeper did save it but at the end of the game he also decided to give another one which was also not legit which this time they scored and prevented us from going to the tournament
He had a great game indeed. All yellows were correct. Only scandal desicion was Czechs goal was clear foul. But this was mistake from VAR did t even warn him.
Another issue for us all with Kovacs... he is the referee for the Euro 2024 Final... let's hope his decision making is better in that game than it was in the Turkey Czechia game. I can't believe he's even a top referee, he has no clue about the rules of fouls in football, yellow card for normal tackle even though the player that tackled the opposing player git the ball, not the man and their was no excessive force used... the guy makes the game look like a joke
I agree that the Scottish one was a penalty.
That said, those are two different games and two different refs. I don’t mind refs having their own individual interpretation/tolerance as long as they apply it consistently. The ref in the Scottish/Hungarian game wasn’t unfair, he seemed to be letting both teams get away with a lot.
He did let the game flow, but to a detriment of the game, I thought.
I don't disagree with the result overall, both teams were poor on the day, but Hungary wanted it more and put themselves in situations where they might actually be able to score.
Scotland were utterly awful all game, but it was definitely a penalty, all day long, how it never even got brought back for a VAR review after seeing some of the other decisions brought back for review in this tournament is frustrating as hell.
Recap: Italy played better but didn't manage to score until the last minute.
(Seriously, refereeing wasn't that big of a problem)
I'm sorry you guys got eliminated, I like croatia and your football. But you played way harder and fouled more. Ref did an okay job.
the referee for Portugal Georgia was the same ... Ronaldo got grabbed on the box, penalty worthy, and given a yellow for protesting.
I believe he was a few newtons of force away from having the Shirt ripped up.
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That's typical behaviour for Istvan Kovacs. He's pretty controversial in the Romanian league as well
But then how do these people get to be chosen to referee in Euros?! Just weird.
its the UEFA referee committee. and to be eligible, refs have to be on the FIFA list, so the FIFA referee committee is in it as well. the european composition of these committees looks like this: UEFA: Chairman Rosetti (Ita), Carballo (Esp), Damkova (Cze), Sajn (Slo), +1 FIFA: Chairman Collina (Ita), Rosetti Ita), Rizzoli (Ita), Damkova (Cze) Damkova is the wife of Roman Berbr. go ahead google him, and "Match Fixing"
Do they oversee ref misconduct ? He took a goal away from Czech that should earn him a reprimand and removal from tournament play . It was a bad call . Could not the VAR assist at that point?
From my understanding VAR did get involved but went with the Ref. He is though by far the worst ref of a single match I have ever seen, talk about no concept of what a foul actually is... Worst of all he is the Ref for the final match
Are they the real people on each of them committees? As if so that instantly screams fixed... In no other industry does anyone person work for 2 separate associations. 3 of the 4 chair persons for each association being the same is only done so they set the laws, rules and regulations and they only change when they want. It should be 4 different people on each of the association boards... Favouritism and fixing is as rife as we all thought then
Out referee from turkiye literally got jumped on the field cause he was making the worse decisions and his still a ref in this tournament
He is a really good referee when he is impartial.
😂
His performance (István Kovács) last night was terrible, but imo he was one of the best referees in the UCL this year.
That one game Barcelona vs PSG was an excellent game for him.
Kovacs is a fairly good international ref however he has episodes. He is widely known for indirectly helping his favorite team. I suspect he tried to help Romania and Hungary.
Then he is a horrible ref not a fairly good one
For real, how can you say he’s “fairly good” and then add obvious favoritism.
He's really good when he is not playing favorites.
And a corrupt ref when he is
Wasn't a Hungarian ref in that match a conflict of interest? Everybody counted on Portugal defeating Georgia, so if Turkey beat Czechia, Hungary would advance.
It was a huge conflict of interest, but I believe UEFA looks at the passport, not ethnicity. Istvan Kovacs may be a Hungarian name but his passport is Romanian, he lives and referees in Romania, and represents Romania. What's worse is that a positive result for Turkey at the detriment of the Czech Republic would have helped both Romania and Hungary hugely, had Portugal not lost to Georgia. So Istvan Kovacs had a double conflict of interest.
This explains it all. Dude should not have been on the pitch
Is it true that Makkelie is gay?
Why does it matter?
Because there are some pictures circulating of him and his boyfriend who is Italian.
Okay and?
He was refereeing Italy which is obvious conflict of interest. (If true)
Here's the thing, ref is from Romania not Hungary.
> Istvan Kovacs sure, lol, and Hakan Calhanoglu is German.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istv%C3%A1n\_Kov%C3%A1cs\_(referee)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istv%C3%A1n_Kov%C3%A1cs_(referee))
> His father is of Hungarian descent and his mother is of German descent. He holds both a Romanian passport and a **Hungarian passport** at the same time. From your own link.
Yes, as I said he is from Romania. His primary citizenship is Romanian. UEFA looks at your passport not your ethnicity when delegating you.
He holds **both** passports. Wtf?
You are allowed to hold a secondary citizenship in Romania.
Lol so you mean Czechs lost becuause of Ref. Their player was stupid to get a yellow in 10 mins what could referee do? He gave Czechs a free goal which was a clear foul. If this happened to big teams like England Italy Germany today UEFA was in under pressure and this Ref was out for his lifdtime
No, I don't mean the Czechs lost because of the ref. I meant exactly what I wrote. It was a question regarding the ref's dual citizenship and the outcome of this particular game potentially affecting both Hungary and Romania.
Well there were even direct examples. I cannot remember his name but Italy born Croatian Ref was assigned to Croatia game in previous tournament. Italians and Croatians can tell his name I think. I belive was something Ivan.
And beside that Hungary had almost no chance. IF Portugal had won, Turkey had to lose 3 goals difference against Czechs.
No I think the Hungarians were rooting for Turkey. Turkey won, why Czechia stayed at 1 point. If Portugal won, Georgia would also just have 1 point. So in that case Croatia (2p) and Czechia (1p) would have been the worst number 3s. And Hungary with 3 points would qualify. But I agree that this discussion about the ref is far-fetched. It's more likely that certain refs can't handle the pressure.
I’d actually like to know why pulling shirts is now within the laws of the game. Seen it CONSTANTLY throughout the tournament and it appears to be no longer an offence/foul.
Only when it’s convenient for the refs, swear to god so many of them got some big money on teams, at least that’s what it looks like
For sure, I've seen fouls being called for slight touches and some excessive shirt tugging be completely ignored
I watch the coverage from UK and ITV has this UEFA referee woman. She is horrible. Defending nasty tackles while saying the simplest of touches are fouls She also sees no issue with shirt pulling like today as apparently "it does not interfere with play"
I agree she is awful and you would not want her ever to ref a game, but has highlighted the problem the refs don't understand football and think they are right. A drastic change needs to happen to fix this issue not just fire the shit refs.
I am a referee in grassroots football and I can easily tell you now that at least in the lower levels: It's not always about being right but about pleasing one side without angering the other too much. You don't even get the power as the referee. My first 2 months were shaky (anyone new wouldn't be perfect) but I recovered and my 2nd season was near flawless. I faced coaches with serious anger issues that made biased claims and made a big deal of every single good decision as they couldn't agree with a loss so they take it out on the refs... even if they lose like 7-0. Some coaches even lack the knowledge of basic football rules which has shocked me. I saw horrific "blind" refs that were praised much more than me only as they pleased the more influencial side. Honestly it all seems is unfair or even corrupt 🤷♂️ I have seen no bribes but I have seen a nasty cheating ref making wrong decisions and laughing after the game to the coach of the team he was biased for. He had dirty tactics under his sleeve and I did not see rest of his games but he got promoted a season later There is no level 2 course for refs. Just basic level 1 course training, the rest is just how you manage to climb a higher ladder and I can tell you now that it's certainly not always by being the perfect ref as we may think. Most captains are sons of the coach in the grassroots teams even if they're terrible players, you fairly book them and sometimes it all kicks off. I think that says it all really (I am not accusing anyone or anything in any way but anyone hanging around the grassroots level where the refs start off would see that there is something dodgy going on) Anyway. I stay fair and true to myself. I don't care, i know my rulebook that I have studied for countless of weeks and hours and at least I have a clean concious unlike some blatant cheats
If somebody really wanted to fix this, they would apply Game theory concepts to refereeing. For example, the teams would have to delegate the referee and agree on whom to appoint jointly, as opposed to a third party entity with no accountability to the teams being the one to appoint match referees.
Very true. At first, I thought, cool, I don't mind a woman ref that knows her stuff, but it wasn't long until I noticed how terrible she is at making decisions. She is clueless to be really honest and yeah I agree. Something must be very wrong with how they train the referees or something else but a huge change is needed
To be fair to her she’s is just interpreting the law of the game, she does often say she agrees with the pundits, I certainly would not say she’s horrible and she does give an interesting insight from a VAR’s perspective.
I'm in Canada watching the same coverage and I'm happy to hear that others think the same about her as I do. On slow motion replays of clear fouls, which the ref whistled for a foul, she says "He's gone down rather easily there" while on other correct non-calls she states about a player that "He'll want to be careful to change his manner before he costs his team a penalty". But...he didn't commit a foul, and the replay she's commenting on shows it as such. I feel like she's more concerned with speaking sternly than with being accurate.
Watching from Canada my main thought is "at least the refs dont let players get away with headbutts to the face in this tournament." Still, first win!!!
No doubt! Like WTF???
Very true analysis. It seems like she wants to be heard as if she knows what she's talking about and pretend that she cannot be wrong while my rating of her decisions is 3/10 and that's at best while being nice
it seems her purpose is explicitly to gaslight the viewership into accepting whatever the ref’s decision is with a technical word salad
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i’m sorry if this is a dumb question but is there a reason why they don’t take refs specifically from nations that aren’t involved in the EURO cup? wouldn’t that just eliminate so much bias?
Because there is a huge overlap in football nations and experienced referees. Sure you could pick some from say Estonia. But they will not have the same resume as premier League / bundles Liga / serie A. And on top of that I would assume there's gonna be a lot of politics behind it. Every nation will want to have their referees in, every referee will argue it's unfair, since Spanish/English/German ones would pretty much never get a chance to work as prestigious event in their life.
okay, that definitely makes more sense. thanks!
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>could spell it out loud and clear why these referees were chosen, but it would get me banned Is it because you woild be making massively unevidenced accusations about the integrity of the refs? Yeah, maybe it shouldn't be said then, since ot would almost certainly be wrong.
yeah i agree but it is what it is, i guess.
The Scandinavians fixed matches in the past, they can be as corrupt as anyone if the incentive is right.
I remember at the start of the World Cup VAR was giving shirt pulls as pens
And now it's a dive You get pulled, you fall, it's a dive
To preface this - I don’t think the refs have done a good job at all But shirt pulling is a really excellent example of why it’s so hard to ref the laws of the game and why it’s all such a mess Shirt pulling is now a completely widespread practice in every league. If refs blew up every instance you’d have a period of several months where games would be severely disrupted and idiot pundits would talk about the game going soft. So what you have now is basically refs using their judgment to just punish the most egregious instances of shirt pulling - but inevitably they fuck that up and it’s really inconsistent because it’s so subjective Contact in the box and dissent are two other areas that sufffer from this same problem where referees are not really enforcing the laws they are using their judgment At some point IFAB will need a fundamental review of the rules to try and create consistency around application of these sorts of rules. In many places the rules as written bear no relation to how football is actually played
If I were the referee I would just tell the teams before the game „first tug is free, second is yellow, third is red. And if you are unlucky and I miscount, the first is already yellow“ In my opinion this is fine, because I find tugging to be grossly unsportsmanlike. You are not trying to get get the ball, you are JUST going for player. To me that always is a yellow
Best part is fans saying it's normal and ok.... since when can you tug jerseys to the point of bringing a guy down and no foul
Should be a VAR punishable offense.
I complained about the dozens of yellow cards. Then, believe it or not, the arm of the referee came out of my TV showing me the yellow card.
Hahaha! This has me cracked 🤣
What a godawful showing by Kovacs. Not sure how many of you watch NBA basketball, but that was a Scott Foster-level ref job. Everyone is here to watch the refs, right!? 18 YELLOW CARDS and 2 REDS! CRIMINAL
I think he did a great job. All cards were justified. He had a straight line.
Last Germany game as well. Happy they won, but I thought bought refs not in favour for Germany. Ruins the entertainment and the drive for football. Edit: spelling
The Germany Switzerland game felt so fucking rigged istg.
Yeah dude I thought Sane was going to blow up at the ref when he was clearly laid out but he was surprisingly calm about it.
Germany didnt win? Which Game are you Talking about ?
Wait they didn’t win (my fault, oh gosh now I feel bad) but my point stands. (no hate to refs but truly weird in when they give the cards or just break the flow of the game, how is it normally?) Tho from seeing the refs pov: players should do more clean football but than again we aren’t on the field nor with the same passion and don’t have the adrenaline kick… I don’t know mate. This year, I am just surprised that Turkey is going further. I just hope the young stars can get more experience without having sustaining injuries…but all of the good players are mostly injured in some shape or form…
The Czech game at least gave us this wonderful pinned comment [from the official fox sports yt channel](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HDo8EelGpLY): "Unbelievable performance from the referee!"
Welcome to my world. Kovaks destroys matches once in a while in the romanian league, but he usually is ok during international matches
He just thought that CFR was playing in white shirts
=)))))) mor
He wants to be in the spotlight every time. That’s his big problem
International football is always a little bit corrupt
Every single match I hear the name of the refs more than I hear names of players means the ref is doing a bad job, and its honestly more than half of the games. You should not even remember their names but they are the main thing I remember from this tournament so far.
I still remember Wilton sampaio from the World Cup. We probably could’ve won the France game had he not made 2 god awful calls
You mean actual corruption as bribes/bets etc or just favouritism towards certain teams?
Red card was solid. I agree with the rest. There was a clear handball from Turkish player outside of the box in the Czech goal he cancelled.
also there was a clear foul to goalkeeper in Czechia's goal
Don't think the referee was good, there were many points to argue. But this one in particular wasn't, it was no where near a foul. Maybe you still think that a goalkeeper has special protection within the six yard box? Not the case.
Yeah, I don’t think it was foul. Czech player didn’t even notice the goalie until he lost the ball. Mert should have punched the ball instead of trying to catch it there.
The first yellow was not justified. It was first foul and it was nothing too aggressive, it was not stopping a goal attack.
He kicked him, pulled him back and kicked him again. It's a nailed on yellow card lmao
He was free to run down the wing into space if not impeded The rules don't specify a goal attack, only "a promising attack, except where the referee awards a penalty kick". A winger being free to run into space and cross into the box is a promising attack therefore justifies a caution.
Facking learn the rules mate.
The Portugal - Georgia one was very poor as well.
Apparently shirt pulling and fouling in the box isn’t enough for a pen. Just shocking
That was probably the only dodgy decision that game. The ref was incredible that game.
It’s just the usual “letting the game flow” approach to international tournaments. The teams have had three games to adjust. Anyone appalled by this tournament is clearly too young to remember World Cup 2002, amongst others.
Wait till you find out that was 22 years ago, most of this sub wouldn’t have watched it.
This sub is mostly annoying as fuck zoomers so of course not.
Ha ha. First Turkey v Brazil WC 2002 game have a look at the ref calls on that one. Was hilarious! NOT!
There is “letting the game flow” and then there is clear dishonesty, I’m fully on board with not stopping the game for every slight push (which they do all the time anyway) but this is something else
people just should start sucker punching each other and then saying “just let the game flow”
As a Romanian we are very used to be mad at the refs. We have not forgotten Urs Myers who had a habit of dictating matches against us. Today Romania 🇷🇴 was very favored by the refs and our only Romanian ref was a nightmare on the field!
Disgrace is the word I was looking for, shits disgraceful
Feel free to quote Didier Drogba (after a game full of blatantly corrupt calls for Messi's Barcelona against Drogba's Chelsea).
Every time, the Czechs had free kick , or after a foul,Turks kicked the ball away.Not once he said anything.Same with pulling shirts, hand bal atc...
bye byeee
Many bad refs true
Hes so shit that I always call him Istvan Kurvacs
The worst ones have been Michael Oliver and Anthony Taylor to be honest. Meh, we're used to it 🤷🏻♂️
Honestly people will complain about referees no matter what. I have thought the standard of refereeing has generally been excellent this tournament. It is only the last few games where referees have started to lose control of some games but overall I think the decision making in the group stages has been very good. I think a big contributor to poor decision making is diving and faking injury- referees are quite rightly sceptical about the honesty of alot of players these days. I have some sympathy for referees because players have gotten so good at conning officials now.
It seems to me that adding a second, or even third referee, to each match would help. A team off officials would police themselves more consistently than one individual might (theoretically), making calls more consistent (again, in theory). Basketball uses three officials on a much smaller court and with less than half the players. I don't know, just a thought.
And basketball (nba) is famous for not having bad refs at all. /s Just shows, fans will always blame the refs.
Any other players received yellows for diving besides Portugal?
Leao, 2 times already
I found it funny during Germany Vs Switzerland when the commentators were criticising the linesman, and then I noticed him later and he's actually on the pitch.
I only watched the first half but the first Czeck red was clear as day. 2 ungly fauls = red card. Don't know how out of hand the game got after that. Maybe 18 yellows were justifiable, but if so the ref lost controll of the teams. 18 yellows means bad ref either way.
It's normal UEFA bullshittery to put a referee from countries like Georgia or Lichtenstein in major tournaments. How many big games do these guys officiate in their respective countries - none. It's nothing new - we can go all the way back to the Ovrebo debacle in 2009 (Chelsea - Barcelona)
If our match was fixed its about money. Turks are bringing in a lot of money.
Yes they are but the Copa America ones are even way way worse!
The ref lost control after giving a "soft" second yellow in just 20 minutes and made some very bad decisions but I would say that the players didn't help the referee's cause by arguing and playing physical a lot of times
Refs in the qualifying rounds where even worse We Greeks were playing vs France with lahoz as the red(quite a famous piece of sh@t)and gave France a penalty which our keeper saved and because 1 player stepped into the box a millisecond early it was repeated.But the most attrocious was the one in the home game vs the Netherlands van dijk fouled our player and that cr@ppy b@stard(dont remember the refs name please someone comment it)gave it a penalty.Our keeper did save it but at the end of the game he also decided to give another one which was also not legit which this time they scored and prevented us from going to the tournament
He had a great game indeed. All yellows were correct. Only scandal desicion was Czechs goal was clear foul. But this was mistake from VAR did t even warn him.
Another issue for us all with Kovacs... he is the referee for the Euro 2024 Final... let's hope his decision making is better in that game than it was in the Turkey Czechia game. I can't believe he's even a top referee, he has no clue about the rules of fouls in football, yellow card for normal tackle even though the player that tackled the opposing player git the ball, not the man and their was no excessive force used... the guy makes the game look like a joke
NOOOOOOO
I agree, not allowing games to flow, constantly blowing the whistle for everything. (No wonder every game is boring)
That referee was awful. Czech were robbed.
Care to elaborate?
Yes, referees have been terrible. Like, how was that a Georgian penalty, but the Scottish penalty shout against Hungary wasn't even looked at by VAR?
I agree that the Scottish one was a penalty. That said, those are two different games and two different refs. I don’t mind refs having their own individual interpretation/tolerance as long as they apply it consistently. The ref in the Scottish/Hungarian game wasn’t unfair, he seemed to be letting both teams get away with a lot.
He did let the game flow, but to a detriment of the game, I thought. I don't disagree with the result overall, both teams were poor on the day, but Hungary wanted it more and put themselves in situations where they might actually be able to score. Scotland were utterly awful all game, but it was definitely a penalty, all day long, how it never even got brought back for a VAR review after seeing some of the other decisions brought back for review in this tournament is frustrating as hell.
Tbf we'd have probably missed the penalty anyhoo, true to Scottish form 😂
English refs have been stand out terrible but that’s par for the course.
The rule books are not clear enough. You get different decisions for the same situation depending on the ref
Croatia - Italy …. Wtf was that match?
Recap: Italy played better but didn't manage to score until the last minute. (Seriously, refereeing wasn't that big of a problem) I'm sorry you guys got eliminated, I like croatia and your football. But you played way harder and fouled more. Ref did an okay job.
Blah blah blah
20 years ago most fouls called nowdays wouldn’t be called
I disagree, I think the reffing has been extremely good this tournament. Turkey-Czechia was a rare exception.
the referee for Portugal Georgia was the same ... Ronaldo got grabbed on the box, penalty worthy, and given a yellow for protesting. I believe he was a few newtons of force away from having the Shirt ripped up.
Tbh i think he was the best referee yet. He had a clear line and all cards were justified. Funny how different opinions are.
Not horrible but in some games like France vs. Austria or Switzerland vs. Germany i agree.
What? Why? I though Istvan did a pretty good job