Who is István Kovács, referee for Bayern Munich vs PSG in the Champions League?

Romanian referee István Kovács has been appointed to take charge of Bayern Munch’s home game against Paris Saint-Germain in the league phase of the 2024/25 Champions League on Tuesday. A clash which both sides will be desperate to win after disappointing starts to the competition.

Bayern and PSG’s poor Champions League starts

Although the Bundesliga giants thrashed Dinamo Zagreb 9-2 in their opening fixture and also edged past Benfica in Munich, away defeats to Aston Villa (0-1) and Barcelona (1-4) leave them in 17th place, three points outside the top eight, who automatically advance to the round of 16.

The Parisians’ predicament is even worse, with a narrow opening victory against Girona followed by losses to Arsenal (0-2) and Atlético Madrid (1-2), and a home draw with PSV. As it stands, Luis Enrique’s team are 25th on four points and wouldn’t even make it into the knockout phase playoffs (9th to 24th).

There could therefore be plenty at stake at the Allianz Arena, with Kovács the man tasked with keeping things under control.

István Kovács’ refereeing background

The 40-year-old, who has dual Romanian-Hungarian nationality, has been professionally active since 2007 and gained his FIFA license in 2010. He oversaw his first game, the Romanian SuperLiga clash between Politehnica Timisoara and Pandurii Targu Jiu in August 2007 - the first of 17 league games he officiated that season.

He was handed his first international in May 2010 - a friendly between Italy and Northern Ireland at Under-19 level but his first senior game didn’t come until three years later - he was in charge of the 2014 World Cup qualifier between Latvia and Liechtenstein in October 2012.

UEFA Conference and Europa League finals

Kovács has whistled four major finals in his career so far. His first was the Cupa Romaniei final between Voluntari and Astra Giurgiu in May 2016 followed a couple of months later by the Supercupa Romaniei. He was selected to oversee the inaugural UEFA Conference League final between Roma and Feyenoord in May 2021, one of several high-profile European games he has been involved in.

In June 2023, Kovács acted as the fourth official in the Champions League final between Manchester City and Inter Milan, but did get on the field to officiate last season’s Europa League final, in which Atalanta defeated Bayer Leverkusen.

Kovacs’ sets new cards record at Euro 2024

The Romanian was appointed for the 2022 World Cup but did not referee any games at the tournament, acting as fourth official in eight matches. However, he hit the headlines in his next major tournament, showing 16 yellow cards and two reds in the Euro 2024 group stage game between the Czech Republic and Turkey, a tournament record.

This season, Kovács has already taken charge of two Champions League fixtures: Real Madrid’s 5-2 thrashing of Borussia Dortmund and Inter’s 1-0 victory over Arsenal.

All in all, he has been in the middle for 537 professional games in his career, in which he has shown 2,957 yellow cards (5.5 per game) and 84 reds (one every 6.4 games).

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