Graham P. Barber (born 5 June 1958)[1] is anEnglish formerfootballreferee. He was based inTring inHertfordshire during his career, but now lives inSpain.
In 1998, after progressing through to theFA Premier League List of referees via theFootball League List, he was appointed to theFIFA International List.
He took charge of his first major appointment, theCharity Shield match betweenArsenal andManchester United atWembley on 1 August 1999. The 'Gunners' were victorious by 2–1, thanks to second-halfKanu andParlour goals, in reply toDavid Beckham's strike in the 36th minute.[2]
Seventeen days later, on 18 August 1999, he was the man-in-the-middle for his first international game, thefriendly match betweenGreece andEl Salvador inKavala, when Greece triumphed by 3 goals to 1.[3]
His first major international engagement was theWorld Cup qualifying match on 3 September 2000, involvingHungary andItaly inBudapest, and this was drawn 2-2.[4]
In the same month came his firstUEFA Champions League game,Helsingborg versusBayern Munich at theOlympia Stadium on 13 September - this ended in a 3–1 away win.[5]
On 12 May 2002, he took charge of theChampionshipPlay-offFinal at theMillennium Stadium,Cardiff, betweenBirmingham City andNorwich City. Birmingham won by 4–2 onpenalties, afterextra time saw one goal each scored (byGeoff Horsfield andIwan Roberts respectively) following a scoreless 90 minutes.[6] He had also been referee for two earlier appointments in 2002 atsemi-final level in theFootball League One andTwoPlay-offs.[7][8]
The first of his only twoEuropean Championship qualifying games, both in season 2002–03, was the encounter betweenHolland andBelarus on 7 September 2002 at thePhilips Stadion inEindhoven. It ended in a comprehensive 3–0 win for the Dutch.[9]
His domestic career highlight was the2003 FA Cup Final between Arsenal andSouthampton at theMillennium Stadium on 17 May, whenRobert Pires scored a 38th-minute goal to claim the trophy for Arsenal.[10]
His last professional season was2003–04. In this final period of his career he was given his last big European honour when he was chosen to referee theUEFA Super Cup game betweenAC Milan andFC Porto, held in theprincipality of Monaco at theStade Louis II Stadium on 29 August 2003.Andriy Shevchenko scored the only goal to give Milan the win.[11]
He was to handle one of the 2004FA CupSemi-finals before his retirement from active top-class officiating at the end of that season, the tie between Arsenal andManchester United on 3 April 2004 atVilla Park,Birmingham.[12] United won through thanks to aPaul Scholes goal in the 32nd minute.[13]
He retired in 2004, two years before the standard FA Retirement age.
He subsequently moved to Spain, where he is CEO of Europa Networks.
| Preceded by | FA Charity Shield 1999 | Succeeded by |
| Preceded by | FA Cup Final Referee 2003 | Succeeded by |