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

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

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 titl ...

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

FIFA World Cup The FIFA World Cup, often simply called the World Cup, is an international association football competition contested by the senior men's national teams of the members of the ' ( FIFA), the sport's global governing body. The tournament ha ...

final when he officiated in the 1982 final between

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 re ...

and

West Germany West Germany is the colloquial term used to indicate the Federal Republic of Germany (FRG; german: Bundesrepublik Deutschland , BRD) between its formation on 23 May 1949 and the German reunification through the accession of East Germany on 3 O ...

. Coelho's career began as a

beach soccer Beach soccer, also known as beach football, sand football or beasal, is a variant of association football played on a beach or some form of sand. Whilst football has been played informally on beaches, the introduction of ''beach soccer'' was an a ...

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 (, "Globe TV", or simply Globo), formerly known as Rede Globo, is a Brazilian free-to-air Television broadcasting, television network, launched by media proprietor Roberto Marinho on 26 April 1965. It is owned by media conglomerate Gr ...

. In 2009, ''

The Times ''The Times'' is a British daily national newspaper based in London. It began in 1785 under the title ''The Daily Universal Register'', adopting its current name on 1 January 1788. ''The Times'' and its sister paper ''The Sunday Times'' (fou ...

'' listed him in seventh place in its list of "top ten football referees". Coelho's brother is

Ronaldo Cezar Coelho Ronaldo is a Portuguese given name equivalent to the English Ronald. It became a common name in all Portuguese-speaking countries, being also prevalent in Italy and Spanish-speaking countries. People Notable people known as Ronaldo include: Ass ...

, a representative and founder of the Social Democratic Party in Brazil (

PSDB The Brazilian Social Democracy Party ( pt, Partido da Social Democracia Brasileira, PSDB), also known as the Brazilian Social Democratic Party or the Party of Brazilian Social Democracy,. is a political party in Brazil. As the third largest par ...

), 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 Final match officials 1982 FIFA World Cup referees 1978 FIFA World Cup referees Copa América referees Sportspeople from Rio de Janeiro (city) {{Brazil-footy-bio-stub

See also

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