Polish police have arrested the two video assistant referees (VAR) for the Dynamo Kyiv vs Rangers match on Tuesday in the third round of the qualifiers for the 2024-25 Champions League group stage, Bartosz Frankowski and Tomas Musial, for stealing a traffic light while drunk.
The match between Dynamo Kyiv and its rival Rangers in the third round of the qualifiers for the group stage of the Champions League ended in a 1-1 draw.
Polish TV Sport reported that the two referees were arrested while drunk, as they were accompanied by a third person holding a traffic sign while heading to a shopping center in the city of Lublin.
UNBELIEVABLE! The two Polish VAR referees for tonight’s Champions League game between Dynamo Kiev and Rangers were found completely drunk at 2am tonight! 😲🍻
Both refs stole a sign and were pulled over by police within hours of the game 😭
UEFA had to replace them urgently. pic.twitter.com/j63EcqVA5L
— Football Factly (@FootballFactly) August 6, 2024
UEFA decided to exclude the two referees from the match, and called on their compatriots Tomas Kwiatkowski and Pavel Malik.
The authorities subsequently informed the Polish Football Association of the events that had taken place, and an investigation was opened into both referees.
For its part, the Polish Football Association issued a statement saying, “The Referees Committee will conduct a detailed analysis of the situation after receiving reports of inappropriate behavior by the two referees.”
The statement added, “If the information is confirmed, the Referees Committee will submit a request to the Secretary-General of the Federation to terminate the contracts of the two referees, in addition to referring the case to the Federation's Disciplinary Committee to investigate and consider imposing further disciplinary penalties.”
