UEFA have confirmed their choice of match officials for Arsenal’s game away to Bayer Leverkusen on Wednesday night, the first leg of their Champions League last-16 tie.
UEFA have confirmed the match official team for Arsenal’s Champions League last-16 first-leg away to Bayer Leverkusen on Wednesday, with Umut Meler to referee the match.
Ibrahim Caglar Uyarcan and Abdullah Ozkara will act as Meler’s assistants, with Cihan Aydin completing an all-Turkish officiating team in the stadium.
The same isn’t true for the VAR officials, with Dutch official Rob Dieperink on VAR and Portuguese ref Tiago Martins acting as his assistant.
This will be one of the biggest games of Meler’s Champions League career, as he’s never refereed a match beyond the last-16 of the competition before. His two previous matches at this stage were Manchester City’s 0-0 draw with Sporting CP in 2022, and Benfica’s 5-1 win over Club Brugge in 2023.
Meler hasn’t refereed any Champions League games this season, with his only excursions outside of domestic football being Europa League games and Conference League qualifiers.
But the 39-year-old referee is clearly highly regarded in Turkey, as he was in charge for the Turkish Super Cup between Galatasaray and Fenerbahce in January.
He was also the fourth official for last year’s UEFA Conference League final, and he refereed a few Arsenal players during the Euro 2024 last-16 win over Slovakia.
Meler has refereed Arsenal on one previous occasion, a Europa League group game against Molde FK in 2020. The game was played behind closed doors due to the restrictions on fan attendance at the time, but Arsenal did win 4-1.
Of the Arsenal players in the matchday squad against Molde, only Gabriel Magalhaes and Bukayo Saka remain at the club.