French referee Letexier picked to handle Spain-England final of UEFA Euro 2024

BERLIN (AP) — French referee François Letexier was picked by UEFA to handle the European Championship final between Spain and England.

At 35, he's one of the youngest referees to take charge of a major final. The game is on Sunday at the Olympiastadion in Berlin.

The referees for the past three men’s Euros finals were 48, 41 and 41 at the time.

Letexier has refereed three games at Euro 2024 including Spain’s 4-1 win over Georgia in the round of 16.

In those games, he did not award a penalty kick and did not send off any player. He showed just 10 yellow cards, including one for Serbia forward Aleksandar Mitrovic, who was judged to have dived in the penalty area in a 0-0 draw against Denmark.

There was no video review controversy in any of Letexier's games, including the 2-2 draw between Albania and Croatia.

The VAR specialist for the final is also French, Jérôme Brisard.

Letexier rarely shows red cards, with just one in the nine games he handled in the Champions League or Europa League last season from the group stage onward. That was to Bayern Munich's French defender Dayot Upamecano.

His previous highest profile games for UEFA this season include Real Madrid and Manchester City drawing 3-3 in the Champions League quarterfinals, Bayer Leverkusen winning at Roma 2-0 in the Europa League semifinals, and the season-opening Super Cup last August between Man City and Sevilla.

Letexier joined the FIFA list of referees for international games seven years ago.

The fourth official for the final will be Szymon Marciniak of Poland, the referee at the 2022 World Cup final and 2023 Champions League final who had a controversial season.

Marciniak and his match officials team made consequential stoppage-time decisions in Champions League games between Bayern and Real Madrid in the semifinals and Paris Saint-Germain and Newcastle in the group stage.

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AP Euro 2024: https://apnews.com/hub/euro-2024