UEFA Appoints Slovenian Referee Damir Skomina For Champions League Final
UEFA Referee team has appointed Damir Skomina for next month’s UEFA Champions League final between Tottenham and Liverpool.
It will be Skomina’s fifth European Cup match this season, having overseen two group stages matches – including Liverpool’s defeat of Napoli – and two in the round of 16.
His most recent fixture was Manchester United’s incredible 3-1 win in Paris that knocked PSG out of the Champions League. Skomina awarded the Red Devils a late penalty after a VAR review which Marcus Rashford scored to complete United’s comeback victory.
The 42-year-old had also previously refereed United’s Europa League final win over Ajax in 2017, as well as Chelsea’s 4-1 defeat by Atletico Madrid in the 2012 Super Cup.
He was the first referee to send off an England goalkeeper when he showed Robert Green a red card in a 1-0 defeat in Ukraine in 2009.
He has previously officiated a Tottenham match three times, while Liverpool have had Skomina as their appointed referee on five occasions.
And their record with the Slovenian involved is remarkably poor, with the aforementioned defeat of Napoli this season their first ever win.
The Reds lost each of their first four matches which Skomina officiated, starting back in 2009/10.
They were defeated by Fiorentina in the Champions League group stage that season, then lost Europa League ties to Besiktas and Villarreal in 2014/15 and 2015/16 respectively.
Last season Skomina was in charge when Roma beat Liverpool 4-2 in the second leg of their Champions League semi-final, though the Reds progressed to the final on aggregate.
Spurs have never won a game in which Skomina has been the appointed referee, though they’ve also only been defeated once (vs Internazionale) with him in charge.
Skomina will be assisted by his countrymen Jure Praprotnik and Robert Vukan, while the fourth official will be Antonio Mateu Lahoz from Spain.
The final takes place in Madrid on Saturday, June 1.
Samson Oyedeyi
