AGI – The referee of Italy-Turkey, the opening match of Euro 2020 scheduled for Friday at the Olympic Stadium, will be 38-year-old Dutchman Danny Makkelie assisted by his assistants, Hessel Steegstra and Jan De Vries, his compatriots, and by the fourth man who will be a woman, the French referee Stephanie Frappart. Another Dutch whistle has been designated at the Var, Kevin Blom.
Makkelie, a former policeman, became an international referee in 2011, a year after he began refereeing in the Eredivisie, the Dutch top football league. In the summer of 2020, after the postponement for the Covid pandemic, he directed the Europa League final between Sevilla and Inter, won by the Spaniards.
In March he rose to the headlines of the football news for the case of the ghost goal not awarded to Cristiano Ronaldo in the match between Portugal and Serbia valid for qualifying for the 2022 World Cup in Qatar. Goal, arrived at 93 ‘, which would have determined the Lusitanians’ 3-2 victory.
The oversight was such that, at the end of the match, Makkelie had to apologize to coach Santos and the Portuguese federation. The extenuating circumstances for the Dutch whistle were given that he had neither the Var nor the goal-line technology available.
Stéphanie Frappart, 37, was the first female referee to direct a world-class match in men’s football, the European Super Cup between Liverpool and Chelsea, played in Istanbul in 2019. “You don’t just happen to be in the limelight,” she said then. We women have to prove physically, technically and tactically that we are equal to men. I am not afraid of this. Nothing changes for me ”.
Frappart became a Ligue 1 referee in 2019 after four years whistling in the second division of the French league. In 2020 she became the first female referee to direct both Europa League matches, Leicester-Zorja, and Champions League, Juventus-Dinamo Kiev. In 2019 she also refereed the final of the women’s soccer world championship between the USA and the Netherlands.
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