Foes reunited: Jude Bellingham faces referee who took bribe

The England midfielder, then 18, was given a €40,000 fine by the German FA for saying in a post-match interview: “You can look at a lot of decisions in that game.

“You give a referee — that has match-fixed before — the biggest game in Germany. What do you expect?”

Now the England star will come face-to-face with Zwayer again in Dortmund’s 62,000-seat BVB Stadium on Wednesday night.

Zwayer during a Euro 2024 match between Romania and the Netherlands last week

GOKHAN BALCI/ANDALOU/GETTY IMAGES

Zwayer’s involvement in the 2005 match-fixing scandal, which was centred around the referee Robert Hoyzer, was exposed in 2014.

He was one of four referees punished for their involvement in the £1.4 million fixing ring relating to matches in Bundesliga 2, the German Cup and games in the then third-tier Regional­liga.

According to an investigation by Die Zeit, he was issued with a ban and a fine by a criminal court judge in Munich on behalf of the DFB, the German football federation.

While it was found that “no intentional errors could be proven against him”, the wording of the verdict stated that the DFB concluded that he had accepted a bribe.

However, Zwayer’s ban was limited to six months because he became a whistleblower for the prosecution, which assisted in seeing Hoyzer, the ringleader, sentenced to two-and-a-half years in prison.

Zwayer, who was only in his second year on the officiating list in Germany’s second tier, accepted the verdict and avoided a trial.

He returned to football after the completion of his ban, with his involvement going under the radar. He was promoted to the Bundesliga and then added to Fifa’s world referees list in 2012.

Following Bellingham’s outburst in 2021, however, the referee took a two-month leave of absence from the sport.

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On Monday, the England squad said they were not worried about Uefa’s decision to allow him to oversee their crunch match against the Netherlands. At a press conference, the defender Luke Shaw said: “We have to respect Uefa on whoever they decide to pick as the ref.

“That won’t change anything about us. We still just focus on the game in hand. For us it won’t make any difference.”

Asked if he had ever played in a match in which he thought the ref had “got it in for” him he replied: “Sometimes in a heated moment you get angry in games and can think that.

“But whatever ref has been picked has been picked. We just have to be ready and not focus on that.”

England fans, however, were less pleased by Uefa’s call.

John Millar, a 67-year-old retired council official from Bellingham’s home town of Stourbridge, said the decision “defies logic”. He asked: “How can a ref who has clashed with our best player over match fixing take charge against Holland? Why is he even allowed to be a ref?

“How can he be totally neutral and what on earth are Uefa playing at?”

Following its investigation in 2014, Die Zeit asked what might happen if the scandal was picked up by “English tabloids after Zwayer had awarded a penalty against England in a World Cup semi-final?”

Concern has also been expressed about the appointment in Germany. In a social media post, Jan Aage Fjortoft, the Norwegian journalist and former Middlesbrough player, posted a clip of his post-match interview with Bellingham in 2021, saying: “I am not sure what Uefa are thinking by putting Zwayer at the England game.”