The referee of England’s Euro 2024 semi-final is a convicted match fixer who was slated by Jude Bellingham after taking control a controversial Bundesliga match.
Felix Zwayer, who will oversee Wednesday’s Three Lions’ fixture with the Netherlands, was banned for six months after being found to have accepted a €300 (£253.82) bribe from fellow referee Robert Hoyzer in a 2005 scandal.
And, after he oversaw Borussia Dortmund’s contentious 3-2 defeat to Bayern Munich in 2021 then Dortmund star Bellingham, who will play on Wednesday night, hit out at his appointment and was subsequently fined.
‘You can look at a lot of the decisions in the game,’ Bellingham said in a post-match TV interview.
‘You give a referee, that has match-fixed before, the biggest game in Germany. What do you expect?’
Felix Zwayer will take charge of England’s Euro 2024 semi-final against the Netherlands
The German official has history with Jude Bellingham from his time at Borussia Dortmund
The then-18-year-old Bellingham hit out at Zwayer after Dortmund’s loss to Bayern Munich
Bellingham was subsequently fined €40,000 (£33,843) and even investigated by German police, while Zwayer took a two-month break from officiating.
Mail Sport has contacted UEFA for comment and asked how, given the background, Zwayer could be chosen to officiate such a fixture.
Zwayer, 43, was implicated in a scandal which centred around second tier boss Hoyzer, who took bribes to fix several matches.
Zwayer, then a linesman, assisted him in one match and took a payment of €300 (£253.82).
He was banned from officiating for six months in a move that was kept quiet until German newspaper Zeit broke the story years later.
In what was a crunch Bundesliga clash in December 2021, Zwayer turned down Dortmund appeals for a penalty and later awarded Bayern a spot-kick after deeming Mats Hummels handballed.
Robert Lewandowski converted to give the visitors a win which took them four points clear of Dortmund at the top of the table.
Bayern would go on to win the league, with Dortmund second. Bellingham was 18 at the time he made the comments and was not given a ban.
German football authorities launched an investigation, while Dortmund said the club was ‘100 per cent’ behind their player.
Sporting director Michael Zorc said: ‘It was a very emotional situation, he was very disappointed and only named known facts.’
Chief executive Hans-Joachim Watzke added: ‘To be clear, Jude was not spreading lies, but what happened in the past.
‘This statement shouldn’t have been, but I don’t see anything untrue there. I don’t expect that to have any consequences for Jude.’
The Zeit investigation found that while Hoyzer, who was sentenced to two years and five months in prison, Zwayer’s apartment was searched and he was found to have behaved in a ‘grossly anti-sporting’ manner.
Norwegian journalist Jan Aage Fjortoft raised questions about the selection of Zwayer
Zwayer was previously banned from officiating for six months after being found to have accepted a €300 (£253.82) bribe from fellow referee Robert Hoyzer in a 2005 scandal
The probe also found Zwayer failed to report Hoyzer’s match-fixing ‘of which he was aware’ and that he accepted €300 (£253.82) from Hoyzer before a match between SV Wuppertal and Werder Bremen Amateure in May 2004, in order to ‘avoid critical situations for Wuppertaler SV as an assistant referee’.
Munich criminal judge Rainer Koch was responsible for the case for the DFB which found Zwayer did take the bribe but that he had also contributed to solving the case and that no intentional errors could be found against him. The FA have also been contacted for comment.
At the Westfalenstadion, he will be assisted by Stefan Lupp and Marco Achmuller, with Daniel Siebert the fourth official and Bastian Dankert as video assistant referee (VAR).
The winners of the tie will face either France or Spain in the final at the Olympiastadion on July 14.