Bo Karlsson

Bo Jonas Hilding Karlsson (born October 12, 1949 ) is a former Swedish football referee and later referee functionary.

Career

From the mid-1980s led Karlsson especially Friendship national games and lots under the qualifying finals tournaments. He had his first final round appearance at the European Championship finals held in his home country in 1992 , when he was in charge of the game between the reigning European champions Netherlands and Scotland . The semi-finals of the Swedish national team prevented another tournament appearance. Two years later he was one of the UEFA referee representatives at the 1994 World Cup tournament , with the duel between Argentina and Nigeria he again led only one game - again, the semi-finals of Svenska Fotbollförbundet prevented any further appearances.

Parallel to his international appearances, Karlsson had also been internationally active at club level from the 1980s and had directed various games in the European Cup . In particular, he was responsible for leading the final in the 1990/91 European Cup Winners' Cup , when Manchester United defeated FC Barcelona with a 2-1 win at De Kuip in Rotterdam . A few weeks earlier he had made headlines in the quarter-final match in the 1990/91 European Cup between Olympique Marseille and defending champions AC Milan when the Italians forced the game to be abandoned: After a floodlight failure in the 88th minute, the Milanese were 0-1 -The arrears, which would have meant elimination after a 1-1 draw in the first leg, have not returned to the field despite repairing the floodlights. Karlsson let go of the kick-off before abandoning the game. The game was rated with a 3-0 victory in favor of the southern French and AC Milan, who thus missed the chance for the third title in a row, suspended for the following European Cup season.

Karlsson was temporarily chairman of the Elitdomareklubben i fotboll , the lobby group for Swedish football referees, and a member of the UEFA Referees Committee.

In 2010, Karlsson was the protagonist in the Swedish documentary “The Referee” about his colleague Martin Hansson and his controversial path to the 2010 World Cup . He was also seen in 1994 in the Swedish TV documentary "Fotbolls-VM krönikan 1994".

Web links

• Bo Karlsson in profile at worldreferee.com
• Bo Karlsson in the Internet Movie Database (English)