Paulus Hendrikus Martinus van Boekel (born 19 September 1975) is a Dutch international referee, who refereed at the 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifiers, beginning with the match between

Moldova Moldova ( , ; ), officially the Republic of Moldova ( ro, Republica Moldova), is a landlocked country in Eastern Europe. It is bordered by Romania to the west and Ukraine to the north, east, and south. The unrecognised state of Transnistr ...

and

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 b ...

. Van Boekel became a FIFA referee in 2008.

Controversial calls

On 7 July 2021, he was the

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(VAR) for the

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semifinal match between England and Denmark. Controversially, he chose to uphold referee Danny Makkelie's decision to award a penalty for a foul on

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of England. On 26 October 2022 he was the

(VAR) for the 2022-2023

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 ...

Group stage match between

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and

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, he controversially ruled out

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’s injury time winner which would have meant Tottenham went through to the round of 16 in the Champions league.

References

1975 births Living people Dutch football referees People from Venray VVV-Venlo players Association football defenders Dutch footballers Eerste Divisie players Footballers from Limburg (Netherlands) {{Netherlands-footy-bio-stub