A controversial name in world refereeing, Serbian Slavko Vincic was chosen to referee the Brazilian team’s debut game in the 2026 World Cup against Morocco, Saturday, at 7pm at the New York/New Jersey stadium, in the USA.
Despite his allegedly accidental involvement in a case of prostitution, drug and weapons trafficking, he is considered one of the main referees at UEFA, the entity that controls European football.
Vincic, 46, refereed the final of the Champions League, the main European competition, in 2024, when Real Madrid, from Spain, beat Borussia Dortmund, from Germany, in London.
This year, he was the referee in the quarter-final match in Munich, where Bayern beat Real Madrid 4-3 but were eliminated from the Champions League.
The controversy involving the referee happened in 2020, when he was on a business visit to Bosnia and Herzegovina. The judge was detained by the police on a farm alongside dozens of people, in an investigation into prostitution, drug and weapons trafficking.
He ended up being heard only as a witness and claimed that he was in the wrong place at the wrong time. “I have my own company, I was in Bosnia and Herzegovina for a business meeting. I accepted an invitation to lunch, which ended up being my biggest mistake. I was sitting at the table with my partners, suddenly the police arrived and what happened, happened. We were interviewed at the police station and after seeing that we had nothing to do with the case, we ended up released”, declared the arbitrator at the time in an interview with the local press.
The case did not affect his reputation with UEFA, nor even with FIFA, to the point of being selected for another World Cup.
