Arnaldo David Cézar Coelho (born 15 January 1943) is a former

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

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 title ...

. He was the first Brazilian, indeed the first non-European, to take charge of the

FIFA World Cup The FIFA World Cup, often called the World Cup, is an international association football competition among the senior List of men's national association football teams, men's national teams of the members of the FIFA, Fédération Internatio ...

final when he officiated in the 1982 final between

Italy Italy, officially the Italian Republic, is a country in Southern Europe, Southern and Western Europe, Western Europe. It consists of Italian Peninsula, a peninsula that extends into the Mediterranean Sea, with the Alps on its northern land b ...

and

West Germany West Germany was the common English name for the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG) from its formation on 23 May 1949 until German reunification, its reunification with East Germany on 3 October 1990. It is sometimes known as the Bonn Republi ...

. Coelho's career began as a

beach soccer Beach soccer, also known as beach football, sand football or sand soccer, is a variant of association football played on a beach or some form of sand between two teams of five players each. Association football has long been played informally on ...

referee; he became professional in 1965 (at one time, famously, telling reporters that he was the highest paid match official in the world) and was appointed to the international list in 1968. He was selected for both the 1978 and 1982

s. In total he officiated in seven matches during the World Cup finals, three as a referee (the mentioned final from 1982 included). After the end of his refereeing career, he became a football TV commentator for

Rede Globo TV Globo (stylized as tvglobo; , ), formerly known as Rede Globo de Televisão (; shortened to Rede Globo) or simply known as Globo, is a Brazilian free-to-air television network, launched by media proprietor Roberto Marinho on 26 April 1965 ...

. In 2009, ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British Newspaper#Daily, daily Newspaper#National, national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its modern name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its si ...

'' listed him in seventh place in its list of "top ten football referees". Coelho's brother is Ronaldo Cezar Coelho, a representative and founder of the Social Democratic Party in Brazil ( PSDB), his mother is from a Moroccan Jewish family.

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Arnaldo Cézar Coelho 1943 births Brazilian Jews Living people Brazilian football referees FIFA World Cup finals match officials 1982 FIFA World Cup referees 1978 FIFA World Cup referees Copa América referees Copa América finals match officials Sportspeople from Rio de Janeiro (city) {{Sports-official-bio-stub

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