Nicolae Rainea

Nicolae Rainea (1980)

Nicolae Rainea (born November 19, 1933 in Brăila , † April 1, 2015 in Galați ) was a Romanian football referee .

Career as a player

Rainea played in his active career until 1956 with the lower class clubs Laminorul Brăila , Metalul Piatra Neamț and Constructorul Bîrlad.

Career as a referee

Rainea began to referee first games in 1959. Three years later he was accepted into the circle of league referees. From 1965 he whistled games of Divizia A and from 1967 he was a FIFA referee. Overall, he officiated in almost 1,000 Romanian league games, including 267 in the first division, as a referee. So he was from 1982 to 2009, when he was overtaken by Sorin Corpodean , the referee with the most first division appearances .

Rainea directed 115 international games, including the finals of the 1980 European Football Championship in Italy and the 1982/83 European Cup in Athens . He took part as a referee in three world championships ( 1974 in Germany , 1978 in Argentina and 1982 in Spain ). In total, he was allowed to lead five games and showed 13 yellow cards.

1984 ended Rainea his career as a referee, but remained within the Romanian Football Federation as a referee observer active. Rainea became a member of the Central Arbitration Commission ( Comisia Centrală a Arbitrilor ) of the Romanian Football Association, from which he left in 2003 and whose honorary president he later became.

Web links

• Profile on Weltfussball.de
• Death report