European Final Appointments

UEFA have now released the appointments of the referees for the 4 European Finals.

UCL: Slavko Vinčić

UWCL: Rebecca Welch

UEL: Istvan Kovacs

UECL: Artur Soares Dias

Solid set of appointments, although I haven’t seen too much from those besides Welch this season - but know they’ve all had strong performances in the games they’ve done.

george.g said:

UEFA have now released the appointments of the referees for the 4 European Finals.

UCL: Slavko Vinčić

UWCL: Rebecca Welch

UEL: Istvan Kovacs

UECL: Artur Soares Dias

Solid set of appointments, although I haven’t seen too much from those besides Welch this season - but know they’ve all had strong performances in the games they’ve done.

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Great to see an all English team on the UWCL. Think that European recognition surely puts Welch in contention for SG1 promotion/alignment.

Edit: just realised that not all English as there are some referees of other nationalities making up the team

JamesL said:

Great to see an all English team on the UWCL. Think that European recognition surely puts Welch in contention for SG1 promotion/alignment.

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Completely agree on both fronts.

I think she’s been hounded a lot this season for her performances by some fans (moreso than normal), because some perceive her promotion to be merely “virtue signalling”. In reality, she’s a good official who merits a place within SG1. Hopefully his helps push her there.

Equally I know Kovacs has been knocking around high level European games for a long time, so nice to see him rewarded for it. Hopefully it’s less eventful than Roma and AT last year…

I agree with everything said above about all 4 officials, though I'm particularly pleased for Welch - brilliant ref and certainly deserves this appointment, and an SG1 promotion. One thing I noticed - UEFA said Welch "will take charge of her first UEFA Women's Champions League Final". Is it commonplace for officials to get multiple UWCL finals over a career then? I know she was 4th official last year but they are referring to middles.

Gabriel said:

I agree with everything said above about all 4 officials, though I'm particularly pleased for Welch - brilliant ref and certainly deserves this appointment, and an SG1 promotion. One thing I noticed - UEFA said Welch "will take charge of her first UEFA Women's Champions League Final". Is it commonplace for officials to get multiple UWCL finals over a career then? I know she was 4th official last year but they are referring to middles.

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I’m certainly very pleased for her, I’ve been following her career (having refereed big women’s matches recently) over the last few years and she is certainly the best Englishwoman we’ve got! You can tell I like her due to my pfp I’ve done a bit of research, and in the last 10 years, there have been no middle repeats of the same referee. I wouldnt think they can ref the middle twice in a UWCL final, but clearly as you say be 4th official. However, this is different for Women’s FA Cup Final, as Abi Byrne reffed the game yesterday, having also refereed the 2019 version

Buzzing for Rebecca. Did a few games with her over the years, and was always a good laugh to be out with. Really laid back and took everything in her stride.