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

The stakes could be high in the UCL clash at the Allianz Arena, with Romanian Kovács tasked with keeping things under control.

Romanian referee István Kovács has been appointed to take charge of Bayern Munch's home match against Paris Saint-Germain on Tuesday in the competitive phase of the 2024/25 Champions League. A clash that both sides will be desperate to win after a disappointing start to the competition.

The bad Champions League of Bayern and PSG begins

Although the Bundesliga giants defeated Dinamo Zagreb 9-2 in their opening match and also went 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, which automatically advance to the round of 16.

The situation for the Parisians is even worse, with a narrow opening win against Girona, followed by losses against Arsenal (0-2) and Atlético Madrid (1-2), and a home draw against PSV. As it stands, Luis Enrique's team is 25th with four points and wouldn't even make it to the knockout stages of the play-offs (9th to 24th).

So there could be plenty at stake at the Allianz Arena, with Kovács as the man tasked with keeping things under control.

István Kovács' refereeing background

The 40-year-old, who has dual Romanian-Hungarian citizenship, has been playing professionally since 2007 and obtained his FIFA license in 2010. He oversaw his first match, the Romanian SuperLiga match between Politehnica Timisoara and Pandurii Targu Jiu in August 2007. the first of 17 league games he managed that season.

He got his first international in May 2010 – a friendly between Italy and Northern Ireland at Under-19 level, but his first senior match 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 refereed 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 few months later by the Supercupa Romaniei. He was selected to oversee the first UEFA Conference League final between Roma and Feyenoord in May 2021, one of several high-profile European matches in which he was involved.

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

Kovacs' sets new ticket record at Euro 2024

The Romanian was appointed for the 2022 World Cup, but did not referee the tournament and acted as the fourth official in eight matches. However, he made headlines in his next major tournament, with 16 yellow cards and two red cards in the Euro 2024 group stage match between the Czech Republic and Turkey, a tournament record.

This season, Kovács already has two Champions League appearances to his name: Real Madrid's 5-2 defeat to Borussia Dortmund and Inter's 1-0 win over Arsenal.

All in all, he has played 537 professional matches in the middle division in his career, during which he has shown 2,957 yellow cards (5.5 per match) and 84 red cards (one per 6.4 matches).