UEFA have confirmed their matchday officials for Arsenal’s trip to Slavia Prague on Tuesday, with an unfamiliar referee taking charge of the game.
UEFA have confirmed their team of match officials for Arsenal’s midweek game away to Slavia Prague, with Azerbaijani referee Aliyar Aghayev to take charge of the match, assisted by Zeynal Zeynalov and Akif Amirali, with Elchin Masiyev as the fourth official.
Rob Dieperink is on VAR, with Jeroen Manschot assisting, meaning an all-Azerbaijani in-stadium officiating team and a Dutch duo on VAR.
Arsenal fans are unlikely to be familiar with referee Aghayev, as he’s never refereed one of their matches. The same is true for Slavia Prague.
In fact, Aghayev has only referee one English club on one occasion in the past – Manchester City in 2023. City won that away game against Red Star Belgrade 3-2 with the help of a penalty.
The 38-year-old official does have some Champions League experience, though not a huge amount. In addition to that City game, he’s refereed four other matches in the competition, most recently a League Phase game between FC Copenhagen and Bayer Leverkusen in September.
In some ways, it’s good to go into a match without having any baggage about the referee from previous encounters. Arsenal fans will just have to hope the official’s inexperience doesn’t count against them on Tuesday night.