UEFA named the refereeing team for the first match of the playoff round of the Champions League qualification between Dynamo Kyiv and Benfica Lisbon, which will be held next Wednesday, August 17, in Lodz, Poland (due to the war, Kyiv is still holding its international home fights).
Felix ZweierAll judges represent Germany. The main referee of the upcoming match will be 41-year-old Felix Zweier. Stefan Lupp and Marco Achmüller will help him on the lines. The fourth referee is Sven Jablonski. VAR Chief Referee - Bastian Dankert.
Zweier has been a FIFA referee since 2012. For all the time he has already worked in 90 international fights. The German will officiate the Champions League match for the 32nd time in his career.
The last international match in which Zweier worked was the second leg of the 3rd qualifying round of the current Champions League between the Cypriot "Apollo" and the Israeli "Maccabi" from Haifa (2: 0), which took place last week.
Zweier is a very experienced referee, so it is not surprising that he had previously worked on a match involving Dynamo Kyiv: in the 2015/16 season, the German was the main referee of the Champions League group stage match between Besiktas and Dynamo (1: 1, 5 yellow cards).
In total, Zweier's track record includes as many as six European Cup matches with the participation of Ukrainian clubs:
Europa League 2013/14, group stage. "Chernomorets" - Dynamo ZG (Croatia) - 2:1
Europa League 2014/15, group stage. "Dnieper" - Inter (Italy) - 0:1
Champions League 2015/16, 3rd qualifying round. "Miner" - Fenerbahce (Turkey) - 3:0
Champions League 2016/17, group stage. "Besiktas" (Turkey) - "DYNAMO" - 1:1
Champions League 2017/18, group stage. "Miner" - Napoli (Italy) - 2:1
Champions League 2019/20, group stage. "Miner" - Atalanta (Italy) - 0:3
In addition, once Zweier worked at a match with the participation of the national team of Ukraine. And it was quite recently - in October 2021, when the German referee officiated the qualifying match of the 2022 World Cup Ukraine - Bosnia and Herzegovina (1: 1).
As for the degree of severity of the chief referee of the meeting between Dynamo and Benfica, Zweier shows an average of 4 yellow cards per match, and removals are noted in approximately every fifth match. The German appoints a penalty in about every third match under his leadership.
Job statistics Felix Zweier at international matches
