The Champions League qualification play-off round first leg between FC Dynamo Kyiv and RB Salzburg will be refereed by Sandro Schärer.
The future referee was born on June 6 1988 in the small commune of Büttikon. Being 17 years of age Schärer completed qualification courses for referees and in 2011 already worked in the second best league of the country – the Challenge League. In two years, Sandro made his debut in the Super League.
Schärer has been a FIFA referee since 2015. In 2020 Sandro received an appointment for the Champions League group stage game between Barcelona and Ferencvarosi. Thus Butticon native became the first Swiss since 2011 who was entrusted to work at the match of the main stage of the most prestigious club tournament in Europe. Another important milestone in Schärer’s career was Euro-2021 (U21), held in Hungary and Slovenia, where he refereed three matches, including the semifinal between Germany and the Netherlands. The same year, Sandro worked at the Euro-2020 as the fourth official in five matches.
In the second part of the 2021/2022 season, Schärer was transferred to the Elite category of FIFA referees. In 2023, Sandro suffered a serious calf muscle injury, which forced him to withdraw from the U20 World Cup held in Argentina. Due to the injury, the referee missed a significant part of the 2023/2024 season, but this didn’t prevent him from being among the officials at the Euro-2024 in Germany. Thus, he became the first Swiss in 14 years, who worked at a major tournament as the referee. Before the game between Georgia and Portugal, Schärer’s team faced a problem. The thing is that one of Sandro’s assistants, namely Stefan De Almeida, has Portuguese roots, so he had to be replaced by Stefan Lupp.
Schärer received the most important appointment in his career so far relatively recently. On August 14, the Swiss worked at the UEFA Super Cup between the winners of the Champions League and Europa League – Real Madrid and Atalanta respectively. Madrid won 2:0 while Sandro recorded 31 fouls and showed 4 yellow cards.
As you know, Dynamo will face RB Salzburg on August 21 at the Arena Lublin. Kick-off – 21:00 local time (22:00 Kyiv time).
