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10th May 2024
03:03pm BST
Referee Szymon Marciniak is set to be axed from his role as the referee for the opening game of Euro 2024.
Marciniak was the man in the middle for Real Madrid's Champions League semi final win against Bayern Munich where two late goals from Joselu secured Los Blancos' place in the final.
Bayern thought they had taken the game to extra time when Matthijs de Ligt's goal was chalked off as Polish referee Marciniak had already blown his whistle for a suspected offside in the build up from Noussair Mazraoui.
Because he had blown his whistle beforehand, VAR couldn't intervene.
Bayern Munich scored in the very last minute however the linesman had already flagged for offside beforehand meaning that it couldn't be checked by VAR 😳 pic.twitter.com/cS0JzVCWMJ
— FootballJOE (@FootballJOE) May 8, 2024
Thomas Tuchel was fuming after the game and although he had received an apology, insisted it wasn't enough.
He said: “The linesman said sorry but that does not help.
“There are two mistakes. The first big mistake is from the linesman. He raised his flag straight away; to raise your flag in a situation like this, you have to be very, very sure it’s offside.
“To have the guts, the balls, to raise the flag like this is a huge, huge call, and it is the wrong call. We got the shot away within five seconds [of the flag] and the referee has the chance not to whistle, but he whistles. It is against every rule.”
Reports from Polish newspaper Przeglad Sportowy suggest that Marciniak was supposed to be taking charge of the Euro 2024 opener between Germany and Scotland on June 14 in Munich of all places however UEFA are now reportedly reconsidering it and are almost certainly going to reverse the decision.
He already has history as he refereed the 2022 World Cup final between Argentina and France, as well as several games at Euro 2016 and the 2018 World Cup.
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