A FIFA official for 10 years, the Englishman is a well-known figure in the Premier League and has already been cursed by Buffon
This Wednesday (7), FIFA announced the refereeing team for the game between Croatia and Brazil, which takes place on Friday (9), at 12:00 (Brasília time). The duel worth qualifying for the semifinals of the World Cup in Qatar will be in charge of Michael Oliver, from England, one of the main referees of the Premier League.
The field arbitration trio is completed with the also Englishmen Stuart Burt and Gary Beswick as assistants. The fourth official will be Mustapha Ghorbal, from Algeria.
The VAR will be Pol Van Boekel, from the Netherlands and the VAR assistant will be the Italian Massimiliano Irrati. The offside VAR is occupied by the American referee Kathryn Nesbitt and the support for the video referee is in charge of Juan Soto, from Venezuela.
Michael Oliver is a highly respected professional in England, having refereed 330 Premier League games, in addition to another 57 in the Championship, the English second division. He also worked in 69 domestic cup games (FA Cup and Carabao Cup).
He debuted in the Premier League aged 25 on 21/08/2010. Two years later, in 2012, he became part of FIFA’s international refereeing board.
In European matches, Oliver has been gaining visibility and importance. He refereed three Euro 2020 matches, including Switzerland v Spain in the quarter-finals of the tournament. In addition, there were 5 commitments in the last Leagues of Nations. When it comes to the Champions League, the official refereed 33 games, in addition to another 30 in the Europa League.
It is considered a referee who lets the game run, a feature of the Premier League, and does not whistle any type of contact. Meaning the game under Oliver can be more physical and close than usual, with the referee’s permission.
However, he has a tendency to fearlessly use the red card when he feels it is necessary, making some controversial choices.
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It has in its ballast some decisions that were far from being unanimous. He was the one who scored the penalty on Cristiano Ronaldo, when Real Madrid eliminated Juventus in the quarterfinals of the 2017/18 Champions League.
Defender Benatia’s contact knocked CR7 down and the referee signaled the infraction. The “detail” is that the marking took place in the 90th minute of a game that Juventus was making 3-0 at Real Madrid, in the middle of the Santiago Bernabéu and was achieving a historic classification, of turning point.
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The penalty kick angered the Italian team, who went to argue with Oliver. Goalkeeper Gianluigi Buffon insulted the man with the whistle and received a red card, completely nullifying Juve’s chance. CR7 went to the penalty, converted and ranked Real Madrid. At the end of the match, Buffon remained indignant.
