Europe's Best Referee 2012/13: Björn Kuipers

The Third Team and its blog referee observers are pleased to honour Dutch Elite referee Björn Kuipers as Europe's Best Referee of the past 2012/13 UEFA campaign. He is followed by Slovenian Damir Skomina on the second and by Turkish Cüneyt Çakır on the third place.

Our number 1 of the past season: Björn Kuipers (NED) (c) gelderlander.nl

Björn Kuipers obviously managed to convince the majority of the voters having performed extra-ordinary well in every single match, specially in the Champions League clash between Barcelona and Paris S.G. in the quarterfinals as well as in the semifinal between Borussia Dortmund and Real Madrid. His tremendous season was crowned by appointments for the Dutch Cup final and Europa League final in Amsterdam. 9 out of 10 voters rated him as no.1 in their individual ranking. Kuipers will also be present at 2013 Confederations Cup starting tomorrow.

Serbian Milorad Mažić is the only match official being present in the top 10 list who did not join the Elite category in the past season.

Congratulations to all the officials who are involved in this ranking.

Each of our observers transmitted a list featuring their individual top 10. The referee on the first place got 15 points, the second placed official got 12, the third got 10. The further seven referees got 3-9 points respectively. Only international achievements in the major UEFA and FIFA competitions starting from 31 August 2012 (Super Cup final 2012) until today have been taken into account.

Our entire top 10 list:

1. Björn Kuipers - Netherlands - 147 points

2. Damir Skomina - Slovenia - 96 points

3. Cüneyt Çakır - Turkey - 93 points

4. Milorad Mažić - Serbia - 76 points

5. Howard Webb - England - 68 points

6. Felix Brych - Germany - 47 points

7. Nicola Rizzoli - Italy - 44 points

8. Jonas Eriksson - Sweden - 40 points

9. Svein Oddvar Moen - Norway - 29 points

10. Pavel Královec - Czech Republic - 24 points

Other referees who reached a binary number of points but did not reach the final ranking (in chronological order): William Collum (Scotland), Pedro Proença (Portugal), Viktor Kassai (Hungary), Ivan Bebek (Croatia), Stéphane Lannoy (France) and Sergei Karasev (Russia)

Our "Worldreferee 2012": Cüneyt Çakır

Turkish official Cüneyt Çakır (1976) has been elected by this blog's community as this year's best international referee.

After Uzbekistan's Ravshan Irmatov had managed to get this small and inofficial "award", Çakır's semifinal appearance in UEFA Champions League (FC Barcelona - Chelsea), at EURO 2012 having been one of the best officials of the tournament and finally his FIFA Club World Cup final were reasons enough for the majority to vote for him. Colombia's Wilmar Roldán, who had taken charge of 2012 Copa Libertadores final and matches at FIFA Olympic Games, ended on the 2nd place, while UEFA Champions League and UEFA EURO 2012 final referee Pedro Proença of Portugal took the third place.

Our top 3: Çakır (TUR), Roldán (COL), Proença (POR)

A mixture of both achievements and match performances created the basis of the voting. This ranking is aimed at posing a counterpart to the quite narrow-minded IFFHS ranking that is published annually. In addition, it was a main condition to include referees from different confederation into every participant's personal ranking.

The top 10:

1. Cüneyt Çakır - Turkey - 82 points

2. Wilmar Roldán - Colombia - 61 points

3. Pedro Proença - Portugal - 58 points

4. Damir Skomina - Slovenia - 55 points

5. Yuichi Nishimura - Japan - 54 points

6. Felix Brych - Germany - 44 points

7. Bakary Gassama - Gambia - 30 points

8. Roberto García - Mexico - 21 points

9. Dario Ubriaco - Uruguay - 20 points

10. Pavel Královec - Czech Republic - 19 points

On the further places according to achieved points: Benjamin Williams (AUS), Ravshan Irmatov (UZB), Gianluca Rocchi (ITA), Milorad Mazic (SRB), Nicola Rizzoli (ITA), Viktor Kassai (HUN), Howard Webb (ENG), Antonio Arias (PAR), Carlos Vera (ECU), Enrique Osses (CHI), Badara Diatta (SEN), Néstor Pitana (ARG), Daniel Bennett (RSA), Peter O'Leary (NZL), Bouchaib El Ahrach (MAR), Joel Aguilar (SLV), Nawaf Shukralla (BHR)

THIS RANKING IS INOFFICIAL AND MADE BY A SMALL ESSENCE OF THIS BLOG'S FOLLOWERS!

UEFA Referee of the Season 2011/12: Pedro Proença

On the basis of marks awarded by our observers during the last season, World of Football Refereeing can finally offer an entire ranking of those referees who were joining UEFA Elite Group of referees in the past season 2011/12. 

Our "Referee of the Season 2011/12" : Pedro Proença (c) ZIMBIO

Pedro Proença of Portugal has unfolded to be last season's obvious number 1 in Europe. Appointed for 2012 UEFA Champions League final and 2012 UEFA EURO final at Poland/Ukraine, this result is surely not astonishing at all, but the finals are certainly not the only reasons for it, since his season in general was pretty impressive. Therefore, he is World of Football Refereeing's "Referee of the Season 2011/12".

The Portuguese is followed by a quatrain of excellent and promising future referees including Turkish official Cüneyt Çakır in the second place, Nicola Rizzoli from Italy being placed third and German official Felix Brych and Englishman Howard Webb nearly being dead even on 4 and 5.

The full ranking can be checked at the bottom of this page. 

2011/12 UEFA Refereeing Performance Record

In compliance to the observers having put forward their assessments on the respective performances shown in the recent 2011/12 season, Portuguese Pedro Proença has ascended the throne of the UEFA Elite Group refereeing - at least in the European federation's club competitions.

Pedro Proença at Munich final (c) yahoo

Based on a certain system, which is targeted at displaying the amount of performances and their degree of quality, Pedro Proença has basically drawn a profit from last Saturday's UEFA Champions League final he was in charge of. According to the World of Football Refereeing observers, he has featured "a very good performance", whereas two Germans were able to occupy the first and third place on the list showing the average marks.

In the following, the results of the full list of awarded marks for the 25 officials, who were joining the ELITE Group at the start of the season, respectively became ELITE in December 2011, and who acted in the three major UEFA club competitions  (UEFA Champions League, UEFA Europa League, UEFA Super Cup) are be presented. As the number of matches is heavily drifting apart between those 25 officials - not merely due to performance reasons, but also and especially due to other circumstances like in Frank de Bleeckere's case a retirement due to the age limit -, the average marks of the shown performances is exposed here, too. 

Probably, this list is more expressive than the list demonstrating the total amount of marks.

The last list is solely considering the twelve officials who have been selected to officiate at 2012 UEFA EURO Poland/Ukraine. 

It has to be again laid enormous emphasis on the fact that the displayed marks are the respective averages of the marks given to the concerned referee in the concerned match by not only one, but mostly a lot of neutral observers.

1. Total Amount of marks (factorized with regard to the different importance of the match):

Rank	Referee	Origin	Points
1	Pedro Proença	POR	774,0
2	Dr. Felix Brych	GER	759,1
3	Jonas Eriksson	SWE	757,2
4	Damir Skomina	SVN	666,6
5	Wolfgang Stark	GER	655,4
6	Cüneyt Çakır	TUR	647,6
7	Carlos Velasco Carballo	ESP	590,0
8	Viktor Kassai	HUN	579,6
9	Martin Atkinson	ENG	567,5
10	Björn Kuipers	NED	545,6
11	Stéphane Lannoy	FRA	537,9
12	Howard Webb	ENG	507,8
13	Nicola Rizzoli	ITA	500,4
14	Paolo Tagliavento	ITA	499,6
15	Svein Oddvar Moen	NOR	496,2
16	Gianluca Rocchi	ITA	494,6
17	Mark Clattenburg	ENG	485,5
18	Craig Alexander Thomson	SCO	463,0
19	Alberto Undiano Mallenco	ESP	365,3
20	Florian Meyer	GER	313,1
21	Frank de Bleeckere	BEL	311,0
22	Kevin Blom	NED	287,0
23	Laurent Duhamel	FRA	231,0
24	Olegário Benquerença	POR	211,0
25	Aleksei Nikolaev	RUS	141,0

  

2. Average Marks:

Rank	Referee	Origin	Average Mark
1	Dr. Felix Brych	GER	80,3
2	Cüneyt Çakır	TUR	78,1
3	Wolfgang Stark	GER	77,9
4	Frank de Bleeckere	BEL	77,8
5	Laurent Duhamel	FRA	77,0
6	Nicola Rizzoli	ITA	76,8
7	Gianluca Rocchi	ITA	76,2
8	Pedro Proença	POR	75,8
9	Björn Kuipers	NED	75,5
10	Carlos Velasco Carballo	ESP	75,4
11	Svein Oddvar Moen	NOR	75,2
12	Howard Webb	ENG	74,2
13	Mark Clattenburg	ENG	73,8
14	Paolo Tagliavento	ITA	73,5
15	Jonas Eriksson	SWE	73,3
16	Florian Meyer	GER	72,8
17	Martin Atkinson	ENG	72,1
18	Damir Skomina	SVN	72,0
19	Viktor Kassai	HUN	71,6
20	Stéphane Lannoy	FRA	70,9
21	Aleksei Nikolaev	RUS	70,5
22	Olegário Benquerença	POR	70,3
23	Kevin Blom	NED	70,0
24	Alberto Undiano Mallenco	ESP	68,6
25	Craig Alexander Thomson	SCO	67,2

 3. The 12 EURO referees by comparison

Rank	Referee	Origin	Average Mark
1	Cüneyt Çakır	TUR	78,1
2	Wolfgang Stark	GER	77,9
3	Nicola Rizzoli	ITA	76,8
4	Pedro Proença	POR	75,8
5	Björn Kuipers	NED	75,5
6	Carlos Velasco Carballo	ESP	75,4
7	Howard Webb	ENG	74,2
8	Jonas Eriksson	SWE	73,3
9	Damir Skomina	SVN	72,0
10	Viktor Kassai	HUN	71,6
11	Stéphane Lannoy	FRA	70,9
12	Craig Alexander Thomson	SCO	67,2

(c) World of Football Refereeing