THE REFEREE taking charge of Arsenal’s Champions League showdown with Paris Saint-Germain previously served a six-month ban for match fixing.
Felix Zwayer, 43, has been tasked with officiating Wednesday night’s semi-final second leg clash at the Parc des Princes.
The German is one of Uefa’s top-ranked referees and over the Netherlands at last summer’s Euros.
Zwayer now faces another major night as look to come back from their
The two sides are set to go hammer and tongs in search of a place in the final against either Barcelona or Inter Milan.
But ahead of kick-off, Zwayer’s chequered past has now come to light.
In 2005, he was punished for
Zwayer was a linesman at the time and took £250 to fix a second division match in Germany.
An investigation revealed that Hoyzer had been accepting money from a Croatian gambling syndicate connected to an organised crime group.
He was banned from football for life while also receiving a prison sentence of two years and five months.
As for Zwayer, he was suspended from football for six months before returning to eventually become a Bundesliga ref in 2009.
His bribery scandal has not gone unnoticed by players though, with Jude Bellingham referencing it while blasting Zwayer for a controversial penalty decision against former club Borussia Dortmund.
Speaking after a defeat to rivals Bayern Munich three years ago, Bellingham said: “For me it wasn’t a penalty. You can look at a lot of the other decisions in the game.
“You give a referee that has, you know, match fixed before, the biggest game in Germany – what do you expect?”;
