Wolfgang Stark

Wolfgang Stark
Personal
Surname	Wolfgang Stark
birthday	20th November 1969
place of birth	Landshut , Germany
job	Bank clerk
Club information
society	DJK Altdorf
Games by division
Years	Division	Games
1994–2017 1996–2017 1997–2017 1999–2014	DFB referee 2nd Bundesliga 1st Bundesliga FIFA referee for international matches European Cup	121 345 42 84
Tournaments
U-17 World Cup 1999 U-18 European Championship 1999 U-20 World Cup 2007 2008 Summer Olympics U-17 World Cup 2009 Soccer World Cup 2010 European Football Championship 2012 U-17 World Cup 2013
Finals
DFB Cup 2010/11 UEFA Europa League 2011/12
Awards
* DFB referee of the year 2010 DFB referee of the year 2017
As of July 5, 2017

Play media file

Interview at Bayern1 (2019)

Wolfgang Stark (born November 20, 1969 in Landshut ) is a former German football referee for the DJK Altdorf in Bavaria. With 345 led games, he is the most frequently used referee in the Bundesliga .

Career

National

Stark has been a referee on the DFB referee list since 1994 . Since then, Stark has made over 100 appearances in the 2nd Bundesliga since 1996 and over 300 game directors in the 1st Bundesliga since 1997. Stark's first Bundesliga appearance was when 1. FC Köln played against MSV Duisburg on April 4, 1997.

In 2010, Stark was named "Referee of the Year" by the DFB. On May 21, 2011, Stark directed the final of the DFB Cup between MSV Duisburg and FC Schalke 04 in the Berlin Olympic Stadium. Schalke 04 won the game 5-0 and won the cup for the fifth time.

On May 15, 2012 he was in charge of the relegation second leg for participation in the 1st Bundesliga in the coming season, with Fortuna Düsseldorf (third-placed in the 2nd Bundesliga) after 2-1 in the first leg with a 2-2 (1: 1) made the promotion perfect against Hertha BSC (16th of the 1st Bundesliga). The encounter was about to be canceled several times: First, Berlin fans shot flares at the field, in stoppage time the game was interrupted for 20 minutes because Düsseldorf fans had stormed the lawn prematurely.

When the game was interrupted, there were riots in the cabin wing. Stark later filed a criminal complaint for assault against player Lewan Kobiaschwili from Hertha BSC. The DFB sports court sentenced Kobiaschwili on June 4, 2012 to a seven-month suspension until December 31, 2012. It is the longest suspension that has been imposed on a player in German professional football. After the relegation game, Wolfgang Stark was initially no longer appointed as a referee for a Bundesliga game from Hertha BSC.

On December 8, 2012, the 16th matchday of the 2012/13 Bundesliga , Stark was in charge of Borussia Dortmund's home game against VfL Wolfsburg . When the score was 1-0, the team of referees gave VfL Wolfsburg a penalty for an alleged handball on the goal line and sent Marcel Schmelzer off the field with red. As shown in television recordings, Schmelzer had only touched the ball with his knee and not with his hand. After consulting the television pictures, Wolfgang Stark apologized in an interview immediately after the game; the DFB refrained from a suspension for Schmelzer. Since this was not Wolfgang Stark's first wrong decision to the disadvantage of Borussia Dortmund, the DFB decided not to use him for BVB games for the time being.

In the match between Borussia Mönchengladbach and SV Darmstadt 98 on matchday 34 of the 2016/17 season , Stark led his last game in the Bundesliga after 20 years .

Since then, Wolfgang Stark has been active as a coach in the 3rd division and has meanwhile been a video assistant. After two controversial decisions on the 1st matchday of the 2018/19 Bundesliga in the match between VfL Wolfsburg and Schalke 04, the DFB removed him from his role as a video assistant. His activity in coaching the 3rd division remains unaffected.

International

Stark was on FIFA's list of referees between 1999 and 2014 . He headed 42 full international matches and 84 European cup matches. He was also in action at the U-17 World Cup in 1999 in New Zealand and the U-18 European Championship in 1999 in Sweden. In September 2001 he was a referee in the Japanese J-League for four weeks .

Stark was also used at the U-20 World Cup in Canada in 2007, but was the focus of serious tumult following the semi-final match between Chile and Argentina. Chilean players felt at a massive disadvantage because Argentines provoked some yellow and red cards against Chilean players by swallows . During the game, after a controversial decision by Stark, Chilean players prevented one of their fans from attacking Stark, after the game both players and spectators attacked Stark, who was only able to leave the pitch protected by stewards. In the riot that followed, the Canadian police temporarily arrested several Chilean players.

In 2008, Stark was appointed to the Summer Olympics in Beijing alongside Christine Beck with his assistants Jan-Hendrik Salver and Volker Wezel .

On May 14, 2010, FIFA announced that it had appointed Stark to the match officials at the 2010 World Cup in South Africa . Jan-Hendrik Salver and Mike Pickel support Stark as assistant referees . On June 12, 2010, he initially led the World Cup game between Argentina and Nigeria , which Argentina won 1-0, and on June 23, the match between Slovenia and England (final score 0: 1). However, the referee's schedule for this game, which decided on the possible German opponent in the round of 16, met with criticism. In his third World Cup appearance, Stark denied Uruguay a penalty when they beat South Korea in the last 16.

On May 9, 2012, Stark led the final of the UEFA Europa League in Bucharest between Atlético Madrid and Athletic Bilbao , which Madrid won 3-0.

On December 20, 2011, UEFA announced that Stark had been nominated as one of twelve referees to oversee the matches at the 2012 European Football Championship . There, Stark initially led the group A preliminary round match between hosts Poland and Russia (final score 1: 1). On June 18, Stark came in the game between Croatia and Spain (final score 0: 1) for his second use of the tournament; He was subsequently heavily criticized for some of his decisions, in particular two undisclosed penalties and an unpunished handball in front of goal for Spain. Croatia was eliminated after the preliminary round as a result of the match (0: 1). Wolfgang Stark was not taken into account for the games in the elimination round.

On March 30, 2013, Stark was used in the Czech Gambrinus League at the top match between Sparta Prague and FC Viktoria Plzeň . He is the first foreign referee to lead a game in the top Czech league. Sparta Prague won the game 1-0.

Overview of tournament participation

• Soccer World Cup 2010 in South Africa (3 appearances):

Group B	June 12, 2010	4:00 p.m.	Argentina - Nigeria	1: 0 (1: 0)
Group C	June 23, 2010	4:00 p.m.	Slovenia - England	0: 1 (0: 1)
Round of 16	June 26, 2010	4:00 p.m.	Uruguay - South Korea	2: 1 (1: 0)

• European Football Championship 2012 in Poland and Ukraine (2 appearances):

Group A	June 12, 2012	8:45 p.m.	Poland - Russia	1: 1 (0: 1)
Group C	June 18, 2012	8:45 p.m.	Croatia - Spain	0: 1 (0: 0)

Private life

Stark is married and has one child. His main job is sales management at Sparkasse Landshut. However, in 2007 he had to reduce his professional activity to 50% because of his arbitration work. His father Rudi was already a line judge in the team of Bundesliga referee Aron Schmidhuber .

Others

He is the sponsor of the Ergolding grammar school in the Landshut district .

Web links

Commons : Wolfgang Stark  - Collection of images, videos and audio files

• DFB info
• Usage statistics at weltfussball.de
• "Wolfgang Stark: Germany's most famous pipe" , Augsburger Allgemeine from June 8, 2012

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Thorsten Otto : Blue Couch - Wolfgang Stark, ex-Bundesliga referee . In: br.de . January 22, 2019, accessed December 9, 2019.
2. ↑ "Stark follows Meyer" , in: Kicker online from June 9, 2010
3. ^ "Referee Stark indicates Hertha players" , dpa on May 18, 2012
4. ↑ "Referee Stark reported Hertha players" , in Der Tagesspiegel online from May 18, 2012
5. ↑ DFB imposes record fine on Kobiaschwili , in: Spiegel online from June 4, 2012
6. ↑ DFB sports court blocks Kobiaschwili, Kraft and Mijatovic ( memento from January 5, 2013 in the web archive archive.today ) DFB homepage, news from June 4, 2012
7. ↑ http://sport.msn.de/news/fussball/bundesliga/startseite/578885/artikel_der-dfb-will-schmelzer-nicht-sperren.html in: msn of December 9, 2012
8. ↑ Football Bundesliga: Controversial interventions - Strongly no longer video referees . In: Spiegel Online . August 29, 2018 ( spiegel.de [accessed August 29, 2018]).
9. ↑ "Stark and Beck whistle at the Olympics" , in: FOCUS online from April 25, 2008
10. ↑ Article in taz.de from June 23, 2010 ( Memento from August 29, 2010 in the Internet Archive )
11. ↑ "Thanks to Suarez, Uruguay is in the quarter-finals" , in: Kicker online from June 26, 2010
12. ↑ "There is a lot of whistle in Bucharest" , uefa.com, published May 7, 2012
13. ↑ Referee appointed for UEFA EURO 2012. In: UEFA.com. December 19, 2011, archived from the original on June 19, 2012 ; Retrieved December 20, 2011 . 
14. ↑ Strong criticism of referee Stark in Croatia , WELT online from June 19, 2012
15. ^ "Wolfgang Stark whistles in South Africa" , dpa, in: stern.de from May 14, 2010
16. ↑ "There are no instructions from Fifa" , in: faz.net from June 23, 2010
17. ^ Bavarian Football Association: Vacation employment that makes sense . January 17, 2014, online at www.bfv.de, accessed on May 2, 2017.