UEFA has named the refereeing team for the return leg of the Conference League qualification play-off between Turkish Besiktas and Dynamo Kyiv, which will take place next Thursday, 31 August, in Istanbul.
João Pinheiro is the chief referee for the match Besiktas vs DynamoAll referees of the upcoming match represent Portugal. The 35-year-old Joao Pinheiro will be the on-field referee. He will be assisted on the lines by Bruno Alves Jesus and Luciano Maia. The match will also utilise the VAR video assistant refereeing system.
Pinheiro has been a FIFA referee since 2016. He has not yet officiated matches involving Dynamo, but the Portuguese is already familiar with Ukrainian football.
Most recently, on 23 July, Pinheiro refereed the match of the 1/4 finals of Euro-2023 (U-21) between the youth teams of France and Ukraine (1:3). And in September last year, the Portuguese referee worked at the Nations League match between Armenia and Ukraine (0:5).
Pinheiro has also officiated matches involving Ukrainian clubs. Last season, he was the chief referee of the Champions League group stage game between RB Leipzig and Shakhtar Donetsk (1:4). And in the 2019/20 season he worked at the Europa League group stage match "Alexandria" - "Saint-Etienne" (2:2).
The last time Pinheiro was appointed by UEFA was for the meeting between Croatian Dinamo Zagreb and Greek AEK in the 3rd qualifying round of the Champions League, which took place last week, 15 August. Pinheiro showed three yellow cards in that match, and avoided both penalties and penalties.
In total, Pinheiro has 21 European matches under his belt.
As for the degree of strictness of the head referee of the meeting between Besiktas and Dynamo, Pinheiro is a rather strict referee: he shows an average of five yellow cards per match. The Portuguese player removes players in every fifth match. And the referee awards penalties in about every third match under his leadership.
