Meet the Match Officials for Palace's first European final

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The officiating team the UEFA Conference League Final – which sees Palace face Rayo Vallecano on Wednesday, 27th May (20:00 BST) – has been confirmed.

The match in Leipzig will be refereed by highly-respected Italian official Maurizio Mariani.

The 44-year-old has been an international referee since 2019. He will be taking charge of his first UEFA club competition final, although he was fourth official at the UEFA Europa League final last year in Bilbao, between Tottenham and Manchester United.

This season he has officiated seven UEFA Champions League matches – including the quarter-final return leg between Liverpool and Paris Saint-Germain. He first officiated Italian league football back in 2007, starting at Serie D level. Since then he has enjoyed a steady rise through the referee ranks.

2020 saw Mariani take charge of his first Milan derby and last year he officiated his first Coppa Italia Final.

It will be an all-Italian team on the pitch, with Mariani will be supported by his fellow countrymen Daniele Bindoni and Alberto Tegoni as his assistants.

The fourth official will be Glenn Nyberg from Sweden. Nyberg has officiated in the Swedish top-flight for 13 years and has been a full international referee for FIFA since 2016.

In 2023 came his first major international appointment, when he took charge of the FIFA Under-20 World Cup Final, where Uruguay defeated Italy.

He has previous experience of running the technical areas in this fixture. Nyberg was also appointed the fourth official in the 2024 final between Olympiacos and Fiorentina.

The same year he refereed at both the Summer Olympic Games football tournament and the 2024 UEFA European Championships. More recently Nyberg was the man in the middle for the all-England UEFA Europa League semi-final that saw Aston Villa defeat Nottingham Forest.

Fellow Swede Mahbod Beigi takes the role of reserve assistant referee for the final. Beigi has experience of officiating at the FIFA Club World Cup last summer, where he assisted Nyberg.

The VAR team will be Italian-speaking to ensure communications are clear during the game. Marco Di Bello will lead that team, another highly-respected official from Serie A.

The 44-year-old has been a FIFA referee since 2018, and is ranked as a UEFA first category referee.

He has refereed in Italy's top-flight since 2012, but was one of the first to quickly gain experience in the VAR room at the highest level, following the introduction of the technology.

Di Bellow was the assistant VAR referee at the 2019 UEFA Nations League for England's third-place play-off win over Switzerland, coming just days before first senior international match as a referee – a Euro 2020 qualifier between Russia and Cyprus.

At the Euro 2020 finals, held in the summer of 2021, he regularly worked in the VAR room as a video assistant.

Di Bello will be supported by fellow-Italian Daniele Chiffi as the assistant VAR, while Ivan Bebek will act as the VAR support.

Bebek is from Croatia and has been a FIFA listed referee since 2003. He is on the preselect list for referees at the FIFA 2026 World Cup this summer.

The Full 2026 UEFA Conference League Final refereeing team

Referee: Maurizio Mariani (Italy)
Assistants: Daniele Bindoni (Italy) and Alberto Tegoni (Italy)
4th Official: Glenn Nyberg (Sweden)
Reserve AR: Mahbod Beigi (Sweden)
VAR: Marco Di Bello (Italy)
Assistant VAR: Daniele Chiffi (Italy)
VAR Support: Ivan Bebek (Croatia)

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