What Jude Bellingham said about Tottenham vs Man Utd Europa League final referee

German referee Felix Zwayer will take charge of the Europa League final between Tottenham and Manchester United.

The 43-year-old official, who last week took charge of Arsenal's Champions League semi-final second leg clash against PSG, will be the man in the middle in Bilbao, UEFA confirmed on Monday. Ange Postecoglou will battle Ruben Amorim next Wednesday with the hope of winning Spurs' first bit of silverware since 2008.

Zwayer will oversee proceedings and certainly has an interesting profile. The referee was banned in 2006 for six months by Germany's football federation (DFB), with the punishment becoming public knowledge in 2014.

Zwayer worked alongside German referee Robert Hoyzer, who was jailed and banned for life for match fixing, though Zwayer was among those officials to alert authorities of potential breaches.

Zwayer denied being involved in the fixing of a game between Wuppertal and Werder Bremen B in 2004, although a DFB investigation discovered he had accepted a payment of €300 (£254.76) from Hoyzer for agreeing to make incorrect decisions in a match when he was an assistant referee.

"When I got this firm offer from Hoyzer, I went to my refereeing colleagues," he said. "I stress once again that I strongly rejected this offer straightaway."

The issue was brought up again when Jude Bellingham commented on the allegations following a controversial penalty awarded to Bayern Munich during a clash against Borussia Dortmund, who he was playing for at the time in 2021. Bellingham said after the game: "You can look at a lot of the decisions in the game. You give a referee, that has match-fixed before, the biggest game in Germany. What do you expect?"

For the comments, Bellingham was fined €40,000 (£33,975) by the DFB, who said the England international had "doubted and ultimately denied the referee's impartiality".

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