Pedro Proença Oliveira Alves Garcia (; born 3 November 1970) is a retired Portuguese football

referee A referee is an official, in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The official tasked with this job may be known by a variety of other tit ...

. Proença has refereed a number of notable matches including the

Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira The Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira (; English: Cândido de Oliveira Super Cup, or simply Portuguese Super Cup) is an annual Portuguese football match played since 1979 between the winners of the Portuguese League (Primeira Liga) and Portuguese ...

Taça de Portugal The Taça de Portugal (; "Cup of Portugal") is an annual association football competition and the premier knockout tournament in Portuguese football. For sponsorship reasons, it has been known as Taça de Portugal Placard since the 2015–16 seas ...

finals,

Taça da Liga The Taça da Liga (), known outside Portugal as Portuguese League Cup, is an annual football club competition organised by the Liga Portuguesa de Futebol Profissional (LPFP) for teams competing in the Primeira Liga and LigaPro, the top two tier ...

finals, as well as the final of both the

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competi ...

and

UEFA European Championship The UEFA European Football Championship, less formally the European Championship and informally the Euro, is the primary association football tournament organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA). The competition is contes ...

becoming the first referee to overview both finals of the main European competitions for clubs and national teams in the same year. In 2006–07, he was named as the Portuguese Referee of the Year. He was promoted to UEFA's Elite category at the start of the 2009–10 season. On 22 June 2011, he was named as "Best Referee" for the 2010–11 season by the

Portuguese Football Federation The Portuguese Football Federation (FPF) ( pt, Federação Portuguesa de Futebol; ) is the governing body of football in Portugal. The federation was formed in 1914 as Portuguese Football Union (UPF) by the three existing regional associations ...

. In January 2013, he was voted by the

IFFHS The International Federation of Football History & Statistics (IFFHS) is an organisation that chronicles the history and records of association football. It was founded in 1984 by Alfredo Pöge in Leipzig. The IFFHS was based in Abu Dhabi for s ...

as the Best Referee of 2012. Proença retired from refereeing in January 2015. In July 2015, six months after retiring from refereeing, he announced his candidature and was subsequently elected president of the Portuguese Professional Football League.

Career

Proença has refereed in the

Portuguese Liga The Primeira Liga (; English: Premier League, also written as Liga Portugal 1), also known as Liga Portugal Bwin for sponsorship reasons, is the top level of the Portuguese football league system. Organised and supervised by the Liga Portugal ...

since 1998, being promoted to the FIFA international referee list in 2003. On 10 August 2003, he officiated the Supertaça Cândido de Oliveira, his first final in Portuguese competitions. The match took place at

Estádio D. Afonso Henriques The Estádio D. Afonso Henriques (English: ''D. Afonso Henriques Stadium'') is a football stadium in the city of Guimarães, Portugal. The stadium is home of Guimarães's most successful team, Vitória de Guimarães, presently competing in the to ...

, and opposed

Porto Porto or Oporto () is the second-largest city in Portugal, the capital of the Porto District, and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto city proper, which is the entire municipality of Porto, is small compared to its metropo ...

and

Leiria Leiria (; cel-x-proto, ɸlāryo) is a city and municipality in the Central Region of Portugal. It is the 2nd largest city in that same region, with a municipality population of 128,640 (as of 2021) in an area of . It is the seat of its own distr ...

. A year later, he took charge of three matches at the 2004 UEFA Under-19 Championships, including the final between

Turkey Turkey ( tr, Türkiye ), officially the Republic of Türkiye ( tr, Türkiye Cumhuriyeti, links=no ), is a list of transcontinental countries, transcontinental country located mainly on the Anatolia, Anatolian Peninsula in Western Asia, with ...

and

Spain , image_flag = Bandera de España.svg , image_coat = Escudo de España (mazonado).svg , national_motto = '' Plus ultra'' ( Latin)(English: "Further Beyond") , national_anthem = (English: "Royal March") , ...

. In December 2004, he officiated his first

UEFA Cup A cup is an open-top used to hold hot or cold liquids for pouring or drinking; while mainly used for drinking, it also can be used to store solids for pouring (e.g., sugar, flour, grains, salt). Cups may be made of glass, metal, china, cla ...

match, the second leg of the first round tie between

AEK Athens A.E.K ( el, AEK , formally Αθλητική Ένωσις Κωνσταντινουπόλεως; Athlitikí Énosis Konstantinoupόleos, ''Athletic Union of Constantinople''), known as A.E.K, is a major Greek multi-sport club based in Nea Filadelf ...

and Gorica. He was appointed to lead the 2007 Taça de Portugal Final, in a match opposing Sporting and Belenenses. Sporting eventually won with Liédson scoring the only goal of the match. After refereeing qualifying matches in the previous two seasons, he refereed his first

group stage match in September 2007, a 2–1 win for

PSV Eindhoven Philips Sport Vereniging (; en, Philips Sports Association ), abbreviated as PSV and internationally known as PSV Eindhoven (), is a Dutch sports club from Eindhoven, Netherlands. It is best known for its professional football department, wh ...

over

CSKA Moscow CSKA Moscow (russian: ЦСКА Москва) is a Russian sports club based in Moscow. It was created in 1911 in the Russian Empire on base of OLLS (Skiing Society, founded 1901). Later, during the Soviet Union, Soviet era, it was a central piece ...

. On 22 March 2008, he had the honor of refereeing the first final of

. The final was played at the

Estádio Algarve The Estádio Algarve (Algarve Stadium), also known as ''Estádio Faro/Loulé'' (Faro/Loule Stadium), is an association football stadium located between Faro and Loulé municipalities, in the Algarve region of Portugal. The stadium has a capacit ...

in Faro between Vitória de Setúbal and

Sporting Clube de Portugal Sporting Clube de Portugal, founded Sporting Club de Portugal (), otherwise referred to as Sporting CP, often known abroad as Sporting Lisbon , is a Portuguese professional sports club based in Lisbon. It is best known for the professional foo ...

. Vitória de Setúbal won 3–2 on penalties after a 0–0 draw. He cautioned three players, Sandro of Vitória de Setúbal, Polga and Miguel Veloso of Sporting. He was announced as the referee for the 2010 Taça de Portugal Final between Chaves and

(2–1). Ricardo Rocha and Bruno Alves were sent off for accumulation of yellow cards. He was elected to the 2011 Taça da Liga Final. The match was played by

Paços de Ferreira Paços de Ferreira () is a city in the Porto District, in the north of Portugal. The population of the city in 2011 was 7491, while its municipality had 56,340 inhabitants, in an area of 70.99 km². Sometimes referred to as the ''Capital do ...

, who had beaten Nacional 3–4 in their semi-final, and the title holders Benfica who had beaten their rivals Sporting 4–1 in their semi-final. Benfica went on to win 2–1 to take their fourth Taça da Liga in a row. In summer of 2011, he was victim of an attack on his person at Colombo Centre, in Lisbon. He was struck with head in face by an individual, losing two teeth and suffered injuries to mouth.VIDEO / Naționala, amintiri de COȘMAR cu Pedro Proenca
fanatik.ro (Romanian) On 13 May 2012, he was chosen to referee the

2012 UEFA Champions League Final The 2012 UEFA Champions League Final was an association football match which took place on Saturday, 19 May 2012 between Bayern Munich of Germany and Chelsea of England at the Allianz Arena in Munich, Germany. The match was to decide the winne ...

, between Chelsea and Bayern Munich. On 20 December 2011, he was named one of the 12 referees selected by UEFA to take charge of games at

UEFA Euro 2012 The 2012 UEFA European Football Championship, commonly referred to as UEFA Euro 2012 or simply Euro 2012, was the 14th European Championship for men's national football teams organised by UEFA. The final tournament, held between 8 June and 1 ...

. He was in charge of the

Group C Group C was a category of sports car racing introduced by the FIA in 1982 and continuing until 1993, with '' Group A'' for touring cars and '' Group B'' for GTs. It was designed to replace both Group 5 special production cars (closed top t ...

fixture between

and

Republic of Ireland Ireland ( ga, Éire ), also known as the Republic of Ireland (), is a country in north-western Europe consisting of 26 of the 32 Counties of Ireland, counties of the island of Ireland. The capital and largest city is Dublin, on the eastern ...

on 10 June 2012,

Group D Group D may refer to: * FIA Group D - International Formula racing cars: ** Formula Two ** Formula Three ** Formula 3000 * One of six or eight groups of four teams competing at the FIFA World Cup ** 2022 FIFA World Cup Group D ** 2018 FIFA World ...

fixture between Sweden and

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian Oceans. Its metropolitan ar ...

on 19 June 2012 and the quarter-final between

England England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Wales to its west and Scotland to its north. The Irish Sea lies northwest and the Celtic Sea to the southwest. It is separated from continental Europe ...

and

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical ...

on 24 June 2012. A particular incident occurred in the match between Spain and the Republic of Ireland, in which he pushed Keith Andrews over by accident. On 29 June 2012, UEFA announced that he would referee the

final Final, Finals or The Final may refer to: * Final (competition), the last or championship round of a sporting competition, match, game, or other contest which decides a winner for an event ** Another term for playoffs, describing a sequence of con ...

between the

and

, thus becoming the first Portuguese to referee a European Championship final. Like Howard Webb, who refereed the 2010 FIFA World Cup Final, he also refereed the Champions League final in the same year as taking charge of the final of a major international tournament. He has been selected by FIFA to participate in the

2014 FIFA World Cup The 2014 FIFA World Cup was the 20th FIFA World Cup, the quadrennial world championship for men's national football teams organised by FIFA. It took place in Brazil from 12 June to 13 July 2014, after the country was awarded the hosting rig ...

in Brazil. On 22 January 2015, Proença announced his retirement from refereeing.

Administrative roles

On 3 July 2015, he was elected for the UEFA Referees Committee. Later that month, on 28 July, he was elected the new president of the Professional Football League.

References

External links

Pedro Proença profile on WorldReferee.comCharacteristics as referee on worldfootball.com
{{DEFAULTSORT:Proenca, Pedro 1970 births Living people Sportspeople from Lisbon Portuguese football referees UEFA Champions League referees 2014 FIFA World Cup referees UEFA Euro 2012 referees UEFA European Championship final referees