 Ivanov in 2007 | |||
| Personal information | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Full name | Valentin Valentinovich Ivanov | ||
| Date of birth | (1961-07-04)4 July 1961 (age 64) | ||
| Place of birth | Moscow,Russian SFSR,Soviet Union | ||
| Height | 1.83 m (6 ft 0 in) | ||
| Position(s) | Midfielder,striker | ||
| Senior career* | |||
| Years | Team | Apps | (Gls) |
| 1979–1984 | Torpedo Moscow | 60 | (4) |
| 1985 | Dynamo Stavropol | 10 | (0) |
| 1986 | Dynamo Bryansk | 15 | (1) |
| * Club domestic league appearances and goals | |||
Valentin Valentinovich Ivanov (Russian:Валентин Валентинович Иванов; born 4 July 1961) is a Russian former internationalfootball referee and player. The son of two Olympic champions of1956,Valentin Ivanov andLidiya Ivanova, he lives in Moscow where he works as a physical education teacher.
As a player, he reached the final of theSoviet Cup in 1983.
He speaksRussian and English and became an international referee on 1 January 1997. The first international game he refereed wasLuxembourg–Poland in 1999. Before his qualification he served as anassistant referee and officiated 3 games in the1994 World Cup.
He refereed the2003 FIFA Confederations Cup,UEFA Euro 2004, and2005 FIFA World Youth Championship.
In 2005, he officiated theWorld Cup qualifiers betweenWales andEngland, andSweden andIceland. Both England and Sweden qualified, and were drawn in the same group in the World Cup proper. He was also selected to referee theUEFA Champions League semifinal match betweenVillarreal andArsenal in2005–06 season.
InEuro 2004, he officiated in 3 games, issuing 15 yellows and 1 red.
The2006 FIFA World Cup was Ivanov's last major international tournament, as he reached the mandatory retirement age of 45 for FIFA referees on 4 July. In a second-round match betweenPortugal and theNetherlands, Ivanov issued 16 yellow cards and four red cards. The 16 cautions had matched the World Cup record set in2002 by Spanish refereeAntonio López Nieto until the2022quarterfinal match between The Netherlands and Argentina, when Spanish refereeAntonio Mateu Lahoz surpassed the record with 18 yellow cards. The four dismissals (all on the respective players' second yellow cards) set a new World Cup record.Costinha andDeco were sent off for Portugal, while it wasKhalid Boulahrouz andGiovanni van Bronckhorst for the Dutch. The Netherlands were cautioned seven times, with two players given red cards following the second yellow. Portugal saw 9 yellow cards (World Cup record for one team), and two dismissals following the second yellow as well.FIFA presidentSepp Blatter later suggested that Ivanov should have given himself a yellow card for his poor performance during the match, jokingly saying that Ivanov looked "like a walking yellow card" due to his yellow jersey.[1] Sepp Blatter regretted these words and promised to officially apologise, although he never did so.[2]
Gerhard Mayer-Vorfelder, the president of theGerman Football Association also defended Ivanov, saying that Ivanov was just enforcing the rules. He noted that the match did not lack a sense of discretion on the part of the referee, but rather the teams did not follow the rules of the game. He also pointed out that FIFA gave the order to the referees to adhere to the rules firmly as far as tackling, holding jerseys and time wasting are concerned, and that this was made perfectly clear to all the teams.[3]