There has already been controversy surrounding the appointment of tonight’s Europa League final referee, Felix Zwayer.
He will be joined by his two assistants, Robert Kempter and Christian Dietz, on the pitch while Bastian Dankert will be on VAR duty.
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Zwayer is an experienced official and this will be his second major UEFA final after taking charge of the Nations League showpiece match in 2023.
He also refereed multiple games at Euro 2024 and has been a regular figure in Champions League games, including Arsenal’s semi-final second leg against PSG.
But plenty of questions have been asked about the German, whose controversial match-fixing ban could be brought up in Bilbao…
Why was Zwayer banned for match-fixing?
Zwayer was one of multiple officials involved in a huge scandal.
The 44-year-old was handed a six-month ban in 2006, having worked as an assistant to referee Robert Hoyzer, who was found guilty of match-fixing.
Hoyzer was the orchestrator of the scandal, being arrested and given a lifetime ban after admitting to fixing seven games for money.
Zwayer has denied being involved with Hoyzer, but an investigation discovered that he took a payment of €300 from the official.
However, he did help bring the scandal to light, being one of the people to notify authorities of what his colleague had been doing.
And due to that, he was given a smaller ban from football and allowed to return to football.
The incident happened a long time ago, but Manchester United and Tottenham Hotspur may still question the appointment.
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One person who wasn’t happy to have Zwayer involved in their game before was Real Madrid and England superstar Jude Bellingham.
Bellingham was fined in 2021 after referencing the match-fixing scandal following a defeat to Bayern Munich when playing for Borussia Dortmund.
Zwayer awarded a late penalty to Bayern, which saw Dortmund lose, and the midfielder said afterwards: “Well, for me it wasn’t [a penalty], you know.
“He is not even looking at the ball and he’s fighting to get it. It hits him and I don’t even think he’s looking at the ball.
“But you know, you can look at a lot of the decisions in the game.
“You give a referee that has match-fixed before the biggest game in Germany – what do you expect?”
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Controversy over Zwayer’s involvement in big matches still remains four years after Bellingham’s comments.
And European football expert Kevin Hatchard has spoken to talkSPORT about the German’s appointment for the Europa League final this evening.
Hatchard said: “Every time he is given a high-profile assignment, this comes up.
“This was early in his career, it was quite some time ago. Hoyzer was the main figure in this and was banned for life.
“He was at the heart of it. But there’s no getting away from it that Zwayer was found to have accepted a small bribe and was given that six-month ban.”
He continued: “Now, it was never proven that he fixed a match. There was no evidence of that found, and that is why the authorities made the decision to let him come back.
“He’s now forged a career as a top official in Germany and beyond.
“I understand why people say: ‘Well, if he’s been caught up in anything like that, he shouldn’t be able to carry on’.
“But the truth is, the decision was made, so are we going to litigate this every single time he gets a big game?
“After Jude Bellingham had come out after Der Klassiker and said what he did, I was very critical of Jude at the time.
“You can’t come out and question the integrity of a referee and make out that he’s not making those judgments based on what he’s seeing.
“I think he’s been allowed to carry on, and you’ve made the decision to allow him to be rehabilitated; you have to stick with that.”
