Who is Ivan Kruzliak? Meet the Slovakian referee officiating at Euro 2024

IVAN Kruzliak is a top referee who usually plies his trade in the Slovakian top division.

He has been selected to officiate at Euro 2024 — here’s everything you need to know about him.

Who is Ivan Kruzliak?

Ivan Kruzliak was born in Bratislava, Slovakia on March 24, 1984.

Although he started refereeing in 2005 in his early twenties, Kruzliak didn’t become a Fifa official until 20011.

He made his first league appearance on August 15, 2009 when he took charge of the Slovak top tier clash between Spartak Trnava and MFK Košice, with Spartak eventually coming out on top with a scoreline of 5-4.

During his debut Kruzliak handed out five yellow cards, which is in-keeping with his average throughout his career of 4.75 yellow cards per game.

He also averages 0.27 red cards and 0.2 penalties every match.

Has Ivan Kruzliak officiated at major tournaments before?

Although Kruzliak is 40, he has not yet refereed the finals of a major international tournament before.

That said, he has experience officiating World Cup qualifiers, having looked after seven matches between 2012 and 2021 — including England’s 4-0 victory over Moldova in September 2013.

Kruzliak has also taken charge of 16 Champions League matches from 2017 to 2023, all of them in the group stage.

What else has Ivan Kruzliak done before?

Kruzliak dished out a whopping seven yellow cards to Celtic in their Europa League intermediate stage second leg tie with Inter Milan at the San Siro — two of which were given to Virgil Van Dyke, who was sent off for two bookable offences.

The Hoops were slapped with disciplinary action following the game in February 2015 because the team received more than five yellow cards.

Then Celtic manager Ronny Delia slaughtered the ref’s display in his post-match comments, with attacking midfielder Kris Commons caught berating him on camera.

In August 2017, Krusliak took charge of the Europa League game between Everton and Hajduk Split, which descended into scenes of chaos.

He had to lead both sets of players into the Goodison Park dugouts after chaos broke out among the travelling Croatian support in the 32nd minute.

Seats were torn out, missiles were launched at home fans and onto the pitch, and shocking footage showed one yob swinging a punch at a Goodison Park steward.

The unruly travelling support also kicked down advertising boards and some streamed on to the field.

Has Ivan Kruzliak used VAR before?

VAR was introduced into the Slovak first division for the 2021-22 season.

This came a few years after the technology was incorporated into the Premier League for the 2018-19 season.

Kruzlaik has reffed 41 games in the league since then, so he will know how to handle any VAR decisions during Euro 2024.

Source: Soccer - thesun.co.uk