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Valentin Valentinovich Ivanov (Russian: Валентин Валентинович Иванов) (born July 4, 1961 in Moscow) is a Russian international football referee. The son of two Olympic champions of 1956, Valentin Ivanov and Lidiya Ivanova, he lives in Moscow where he works as a teacher.

He speaks Russian and English and has been an international referee since January 1, 1997. The first international game he refereed was Luxembourg-Poland in 1999. Before his qualification he served as an assistant referee and officiated 3 games in the 1994 World Cup.

He refereed the 2005 U20 World Cup in the Netherlands, the Euro 2004 in Portugal and the 2003 FIFA Confederations Cup in France.

In the 2005 - 2006 season, he officiated the World Cup qualifiers between Wales and England, and Sweden and Iceland. Both England and Sweden qualified, and were drawn in the same group in the World Cup proper. He was also selected to referee the UEFA Champions League semifinal match between Villarreal and Arsenal. This match will be remembered for a dubious penalty awarded in the final minute of play, for a 'push' by Gaël Clichy of Arsenal, although replays show that there was minimal contact. However, Arsenal goalkeeper Jens Lehmann saved Juan Román Riquelme's penalty, and Arsenal progressed to the final, where they lost 2 - 1 to Barcelona.

In Euro 2004, he officiated in 3 games, issuing 15 yellows and 1 red. He ended the tournament as the fourth most-harsh referee, brandishing an average of 5.33 cards a game (Manuel Gonzalez (Spain), Urs Meier (Switzerland), and Lucilio Batista (Portugal) racked up an astonishing 10 cards per game).

The 2006 FIFA World Cup was Ivanov's last major international tournament, as he reached the mandatory retirement age of 45 for FIFA referees on July 4. In a second-round match between Portugal and the Netherlands, Ivanov issued 16 yellow cards and four red cards. The 16 cautions matched the World Cup record set in 2002 by Spanish referee Antonio López Nieto, while the four dismissals (all on the respective players' second yellow cards) set a new World Cup record. 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 president Sepp Blatter later suggested that Ivanov should have given himself a yellow card for his poor performance during the match.^[1] Sepp Blatter regretted these words and promised to officially apologise.^[2]

Gerhard Mayer-Vorfelder, the president of the German 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]

1. ^ "Blatter criticises referee Ivanov", BBC, 2006-06-26. Retrieved on 2006-06-26. 
2. ^ "World-Blatter regrets criticism of referee Ivanov", Reuters, 2006-07-04. 
3. ^ "It was my toughest match, says Russian ref", Reuters, 2006-06-27. 

• (English) Profile on ratetheref.net
• (Russian) Interview with the newspaper Izvestiya, June 27 2006.