Romanian referee Istvan Kovacs will take charge of the second leg of the Champions League play-off between Real Madrid and Manchester City on Wednesday.
The 40-year-old has officiated Madrid matches in the Champions League on three previous occasions, most notably in 2022, when City defeated Carlo Ancelotti’s side 4-3 in the first leg of the semi-final.
He has also overseen a pair of Madrid 5-2 victories; over Liverpool in the 2022-23 round of 16 first leg and over Borussia Dortmund in the league phase of this year’s competition.
Kovacs primarily referees in Romania’s SuperLiga, having first taken charge of a top flight game at the age of just 22. Former Hungarian referee Sandor Puhl is cited as the reason he got into refereeing.
Kovacs has been a UEFA elite official since 2019, officiated games at the 2020 and 2024 European Championship and was selected as the fourth official for multiple games at the 2022 World Cup. He also refereed the 2024 Europa League final between Atalanta and Bayer Leverkusen and the first ever Conference League final between Roma and Feyenoord in 2022.
Alongside his refereeing career, Kovacs has also worked as a PE teacher.
“You have to be strong, because it’s not always easy being a referee,” he told UEFA’s official website in 2022. “I’m someone who is really motivated by the atmosphere of a big match and being out there in the middle.”
Madrid lead City 3-2 heading into Wednesday’s second leg.
There is an ongoing tension between Madrid and the Spanish refereeing authorities with the club taking issue over several officiating decisions in recent weeks. Madrid president Florentino Perez, and the club’s official television channel, have a history of being critical of what many at the Bernabeu view as refereeing bias against their side.
On Monday, club officials met with Spanish refereeing body CTA at the Spanish Football Federation (RFEF) headquarters to listen to the audio files from the video assistant referee (VAR) of their league match against Espanyol on February 1.
The club was upset over VAR’s decision to not upgrade the yellow card given to Espanyol defender Carlos Romero on Kylian Mbappe into a red card. Romero went on to score the only goal of the game.
It is not uncommon for club executives to meet referees at the RFEF headquarters and VAR tapes are always available, but it was the first time that Madrid officials had taken such a step.
A week after the Espanyol game, Madrid conceded a controversial penalty against city rivals Atletico Madrid after Aurelien Tchouameni was adjudged to have stepped on Samuel Lino inside the box, with Antoine Griezmann scoring the resulting spot-kick in the 1-1 draw.
On February 15 in a 1-1 draw against Osasuna, Madrid midfielder Jude Bellingham was sent off for swearing towards referee Jose Luis Munuera Montero before Eduardo Camavinga conceded a penalty later in the game. Bellingham has been given a two-match ban, which Madrid intend to appeal.
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(Flaviu Buboi/NurPhoto via Getty Images)
