The 34th UEFA Advanced Course for Top Referees will be held in Limassol, Cyprus.
As it was for previous years, all Elite referees (unless Russian Sergey Karasev) have been invited, and there will be a selection from Category 1. To complete the participants, a group of selected VARs.
Limassol (Cyprus)
02 - 05 February 2026
Elite
Emanuela Rusta ALB
Erik Lambrechts BEL
Irfan Peljto BIH
Ivana Martincic CRO
Frida Mia Klarlund DEN
Michael Oliver ENG
Anthony Taylor ENG
Christopher Kavanagh ENG
Marta Huerta de Aza ESP
Olatz Rivera Olmedo ESP
Jesús Gil Manzano ESP
Alejandro Jose Hernandez Hernandez ESP
José María Sanchez Martínez ESP
Lina Lehtovaara FIN
Stéphanie Frappart FRA
Clément Turpin FRA
Benoît Bastien FRA
François Letexier FRA
Felix Zwayer GER
Tobias Stieler GER
Daniel Siebert GER
Sven Jablonski GER
Eleni Antoniou GRE
Katalin Kulcsar HUN
Orel Grinfeld ISR
Maria Sole Ferrieri Caputi ITA
Silvia Gasperotti ITA
Marco Guida ITA
Davide Massa ITA
Maurizio Mariani ITA
Donatas Rumsas LTU
Ivana Projkovska MKD
Danny Makkelie NED
Serdar Gozubuyuk NED
Espen Eskås NOR
Ewa Augustyn POL
Szymon Marciniak POL
Catarina Isabel Ferreira Campos POR
Joao Pedro Silva Pinheiro POR
Alina Pesu ROU
Iuliana Elena Demetrescu ROU
Istvan Kovacs ROU
Nicolas Walsh SCO
Jelena Cvetkovic SRB
Srdjan Jovanovic SRB
Désirée Blanco SUI
Sandro Schärer SUI
Ivan Kruzliak SVK
Slavko Vincic SVN
Rade Obrenovic SVN
Tess Olofsson SWE
Glenn Nyberg SWE
Halil Umut Meler TUR
Category 1
Juxhin Xhaja ALB
Sebastian Gishamer AUT
Aliyar Aghayev AZE
Caroline Lanssens BEL
Jasper Vergoote BEL
Georgi Kabakov BUL
Igor Pajac CRO
John Brooks ENG
Juan Martinez Munuera ESP
Ricardo De Burgos ESP
Javier Alberola Rojas ESP
Mohammed Al-Emara FIN
Fabienne Michel GER
Sascha Stegemann GER
Vasileios Fotias GRE
Simone Sozza ITA
Andrea Colombo ITA
Manfredas Lukjancukas LTU
Andris Treimanis LVA
Nikola Dabanovic MNE
Sander van der Eijk NED
Rohit Saggi NOR
Michalina Diakow POL
Damian Sylwestrzak POL
Luis Godinho POR
Marian Barbu ROU
Radu Marian Petrescu ROU
Nenad Minakovic SRB
Urs Schnyder SUI
Miriama Bočková SVK
Mykola Balakin UKR
VAR
Jarred Gillett ENG
Michael Salisbury ENG
Carlos Del Cerro Grande ESP
Guillermo Cuadra Fernandez ESP
Jérôme Brisard FRA
Bastian Dankert GER
Christian Dingert GER
Marco Di Bello ITA
Daniele Chiffi ITA
Dennis Johan Higler NED
Pol van Boekel NED
Tomasz Kwiatkowski POL
Tiago Bruno Lopes Martins POR
Andrew Dallas SCO
Fedayi San SUI
On the same days, the 2026 UEFA Introductory Course for new referees from Europe on FIFA panel will take place. The new FIFA officials will have the opportunity to work with very experienced colleagues, sharing their experiences.
Among the Category 1 called to the course, we can find some names who were in the Talents and Mentors for 2025: Jasper Vergoote, John Brooks, Javier Alberola Rojas, Mohammed Al-Emara, Vasilis Fotias, Andrea Colombo, Sander van der Eijk. The only two who didn't manage a promotion to Category 1, not being called for the course, are Alessandro Dudic and Jakob Sundberg. Same for women, but in their case all the names included in the project have been called (Lanssens, Michel, Diakow, Bockova). Given that the course is oriented to give appointments in Champions and Europa League KO stage, it will be interesting whether these less experienced names could already get assignments, but it's quite likely in my opinion that they will appear mostly in Conference League, because still without a very big experience in UEFA games. In the case of Colombo, in particular, not even EL debut (but maybe it will happen on next Thursday...).
ReplyDeleteNo Morten Krogh or Jakob Kehlet.. What is the situation about danish referees
DeleteBastian Dankert doesn't sound very french to me... 😉
ReplyDeleteI don't understand why Willy Delajod and Jeremie Pignard (France) weren't nominated to be referees for the knockout rounds of European cups???
ReplyDeleteNot necessarily that every first category will participate
DeleteMost notable omissions in my opinion are Osmers and Al-Hakim, who had 4 EL games each, followed by Lindhout and Fesnic.
ReplyDeleteOn the VAR side Storks, Dieperink, di Paolo, Bebek are the most prominent missing names.
And of course, there is a blatant difference between this VAR list and the one participating in the FIFA workshop in March...
OT:
ReplyDeleteWatching Newcastle and Aston villa,I have to say the level of inconsistency shown by Gillet is outstanding.
Last week,or week before he was brave and hesitant to show YC in first seconds to Castellanos for demanding YC.
This match,he is allowing everything, fouls,protests,leniency at it's finest.
Remarkable to see how ref can be different in space of just 2 weeks.
Today and also when I saw him a few weeks ago do Sunderland vs Man City he had a pretty high threshold to give a free kick.
DeleteI can't entirely agree with that, I thought he had a very good game today, and I think it was very much inkeeping with his usual style
DeleteSo Storks isn’t included after the OFR in Inter–Liverpool?
ReplyDeleteFrom what I was able to collect as information on past seasons, apart from the Elite category, the selection among Category 1 referees is based on several parameters, including nationality and the number of teams from that country in the knockout stage (to avoid having too many referees from a single nation), as well as technical evaluations based on the league phase.
ReplyDeleteThere are some names that, more or less, are long-standing and always present, but without any ambition to get promoted, such as Dabanovic, as we have often discussed. Following him, there are names like Aghayev, Treimanis, and Kabakov. Schnyder, after his poor performance in Barcelona under Rosetti's eyes, continues to be monitored, which was not guaranteed.
Among the names that were not selected, we can mention Georgian Goga Kikacheishvili, who seems to have experienced a serious career downturn in recent months for some reason.
And regarding Sweden, maybe the fact that they still don't have VAR and that their league is fully inactive during this winter period doesn't help in the selection of oyher referees apart from the Elite Nyberg and Olofsson.
I also want to mention that I am pleased for the Albanian Xhaja, who seemed somewhat overlooked recently.
The Romanian situation remains complex, in theory, Fesnic should have been considered before Barbu, but apparently, almost everything has now been focused on the latter, the rest remains frozen as before, with Petrescu at the top of Category 1 behind Kovacs.
Regarding VAR, UEFA and FIFA lists correspond to different needs, in some cases even political choices for rewards (for example, Guida had to step down the dream on the field and will be there as VAR). Bebek is highly appreciated by Collina and less by Rosetti, which explains another piece of the puzzle, while in other cases, referees who don't belong to one list may be placed on the other to maintain balance. But on paper, this becomes illogical: if the best UEFA VAR referees are these, they should do both the UEFA course and the FIFA seminar, at least for immediate performance.
In any case, those present on both lists should consider themselves as very fortunate, among other things, the very top of UEFA Videorefereeing: Bram Van Driessche (BEL), Jarred Gillett (ENG), Carlos Del Cerro Grande (ESP), Jérôme Brisard (FRA), Bastian Dankert (GER), Marco Di Bello (ITA), Dennis Johan Higler (NED), Tomasz Kwiatkowski (POL), Fedayi San (SUI).
What I can also add about Di Paolo, my last consideration, is that his removal from the big lists of international tournaments, after an attempt, seems to be based on a new assessment made by AIA about the fact that referees in such roles at the monitor, should mostly be more experienced, Di Paolo had only a few appearances in serie A (4) and he belongs to a certain category of video match officials that is different from all the others, if we want to give as mandatory criterion, having at least officiated a rather high number of games in domestic top division, and why not, if possible, also a FIFA career...