Ukrainian referee team to officiate Champions League 2024/2025 league phase match
In the match of the 4th round of the 2024/2025 Champions League league phase, Sparta (Czechia) will face Brest (France) on November 6, with a Ukrainian referee team officiating the game. This was announced on the UEFA website.
Mykola Balakin will serve as the main referee, with Oleksandr Berkut and Dmytro Zaporozhenko as assistant referees. Vitaliy Romanov will act as the fourth official, while the VAR system will be overseen by Oleksiy Derevynskyi and Denys Shurman.
The match is scheduled to kick off at 22:00 Kyiv time.
It is worth noting that Ukrainian referees have officiated in Champions League group-stage matches twice before.
On September 16, 1998, Vasyl Melnychuk from Simferopol was the main referee in the match in Bilbao between Spanish Athletic and Norwegian Rosenborg.
Most recently, on November 29, 2023, a Ukrainian referee team consisting of Mykola Balakin (main referee), Oleksandr Berkut, Dmytro Zaporizhenko (assistant referees), and Yaroslav Kozyr (fourth official) officiated the game between Real Sociedad (Spain) and Salzburg (Austria).
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