Deniz Aytekin (born 21 July 1978) is a German football referee. He referees for TSV Altenberg of the Bavarian Football Association. Aytekin is a former FIFA referee, and was ranked as a

UEFA Union of European Football Associations (UEFA ; french: Union des associations européennes de football; german: Union der europäischen Fußballverbände) is one of six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs f ...

elite category referee.

Refereeing career

Aytekin refereed his first

Bundesliga The Bundesliga (; ), sometimes referred to as the Fußball-Bundesliga () or 1. Bundesliga (), is a professional association football league in Germany. At the top of the German football league system, the Bundesliga is Germany's primary footba ...

match on 27 September 2008 when Hertha BSC played

FC Energie Cottbus FC Energie Cottbus (Lower Sorbian: ''Energija Chóśebuz'') is a German football club based in Cottbus, Brandenburg. It was founded in 1963 as SC Cottbus in what was East Germany. After the reunification of Germany, Energie played six seasons i ...

in Berlin. Energie Cottbus won the game 1–0, and Aytekin gave out four yellow cards, including one to Cottbus goalkeeper

Gerhard Tremmel Gerhard Martin "Gerry" Tremmel (born 16 November 1978) is a German former professional footballer who played as a goalkeeper. He works as a scout for Swansea City. Tremmel played in the Premier League, Bundesliga, UEFA Champions League and UEFA ...

for time-wasting in the 90th minute. Notably, Aytekin was the referee of the

2016–17 UEFA Champions League The 2016–17 UEFA Champions League was the 62nd season of Europe's premier club football tournament organised by UEFA, and the 25th season since it was renamed from the European Champion Clubs' Cup to the UEFA Champions League. The final was pl ...

round of 16 second leg match between

Paris Saint-Germain F.C. Paris Saint-Germain Football Club (), commonly referred to as Paris Saint-Germain, Paris, Paris SG or simply PSG is a professional football club based in Paris, France. They compete in Ligue 1, the top division of French football. As ...

and

FC Barcelona Futbol Club Barcelona (), commonly referred to as Barcelona and colloquially known as Barça (), is a professional football club based in Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain, that competes in La Liga, the top flight of Spanish football. Found ...

at the Camp Nou on 8 March 2017. The final score of the match was a famous 6–1 victory for Barcelona, while the Catalan club had lost by 4 goals to 0 in the first leg. The refereeing of this match was criticized by the international press, in particular by some German dailies such as Der Tagesspiegel. After the match, PSG lodged a complaint for ten refereeing errors with

, which, without suspending it, ''de facto'' dismissed Deniz Aytekin from the major European posters, entrusting him with only a few minor group matches in the UEFA Champions League the following two seasons. In April 2017, he was appointed to referee the

2017 DFB-Pokal Final The 2017 DFB-Pokal Final decided the winner of the 2016–17 DFB-Pokal, the 74th season of the annual German football cup competition. The match was played on 27 May 2017 at the Olympiastadion in Berlin. Eintracht Frankfurt, in their first fina ...

between

Borussia Dortmund Ballspielverein Borussia 09 e. V. Dortmund, commonly known as Borussia Dortmund (), BVB (), or simply Dortmund (), is a German professional sports club based in Dortmund, North Rhine-Westphalia. It is best known for its men's professional fo ...

and

Eintracht Frankfurt Eintracht Frankfurt e.V. () is a professional sports club based in Frankfurt, Hesse, Germany. It is best known for its football club, which was founded on 8 March 1899. The team is currently playing in the Bundesliga, the top tier of the Germa ...

. On September 13, 2017, during the first day of the Champions League group stage he officiated the match between NK Maribor and

Spartak Moscow Spartak Moscow may refer to the following teams based or formerly based in Moscow, Russia: * FC Spartak Moscow, an association football club * HC Spartak Moscow, a professional ice hockey team * Spartak GM Moscow, a semi-professional rugby club * WB ...

(1-1), he narrowly avoided a rocket coming from the stands that house the supporters of the Moscow team. In October 2017, Aytekin was invited, along with other foreign referees, by the Chinese Federation to referee matches in the

Chinese Super League The Chinese Football Association Super League, commonly known as Chinese Super League or CSL, currently known as the China Ping An Chinese Football Association Super League for sponsorship reasons, is the highest tier of professional association ...

, with the aim of improving the image of a championship shaken by revelations concerning the existence of match-fixing. On 28 July 2022, Aytekin announced that he had put an end to his international career, and that he would only continue refereeing at a national level in Germany.

Personal life

Aytekin is of Turkish descent. He lives in

Oberasbach Oberasbach is a municipality in the district of Fürth, in Bavaria, Germany. It is situated 6 km southwest of Fürth, and 10 km west of Nuremberg (centre). Stadtrat The local council has 24 members. The election in 2020 showed the ...

Bavaria Bavaria ( ; ), officially the Free State of Bavaria (german: Freistaat Bayern, link=no ), is a state in the south-east of Germany. With an area of , Bavaria is the largest German state by land area, comprising roughly a fifth of the total lan ...

. In addition to his career as a referee, he is an entrepreneur who co-founded the websites Fitnessmarkt.de and Anwalt.de.

References

External links

Profile
at dfb.de
Profile
at worldfootball.net {{DEFAULTSORT:Aytekin, Deniz 1978 births Living people Sportspeople from Nuremberg German football referees German people of Turkish descent UEFA Champions League referees UEFA Europa League referees