A referee who dished out six red cards and 120 yellows in 27 games last season has been named as the official for West Ham’s Europa Conference League tie this week.
West Ham’s shallow squad would be advised to be on their best behaviour this Thursday night after UEFA named the officials for the first leg of their Conference League qualifier against Viborg FF.
West Ham face Viborg over two legs for the right to make the Europa Conference League group stage proper.
The first leg takes place at the London Stadium on Thursday evening with West Ham in desperate need of a morale boosting first win of the season.
The Hammers fell foul of UEFA’s disciplinary procedures on and off the pitch during last season’s Europa League.
West Ham were fined for crowd disturbances and warned that any further breaches could result in a stadium ban. But UEFA were accused of an anti-English bias as other clubs – notably Eintracht Frankfurt and Lyon – did not suffer similar punishments for much worse incidents.
On the pitch Aaron Cresswell was sent off in the first half of both the quarter-final first leg and semi-final second leg.
Declan Rice was handed a two-game ban by UEFA for comments made to the referee at the end of West Ham’s semi-final defeat to Frankfurt.
And manager Moyes was hit with a one-game ban for volleying a ball at a ball boy in Germany that night.
Referee who dished out six red cards and 120 yellows in 27 games named as official for West Ham Europa Conference League tie
Rice will miss both legs while Cresswell and Moyes will both sit out the first as a result of their respective suspensions.
So West Ham should be on their guard then after UEFA appointed Italian Marco Di Bello for the first leg in Stratford.
The referee, who dished out six red cards and 120 yellows in 27 games, has been named as the official for the first leg of West Ham United’s Europa Conference League tie.
Di Bello will head up an all-Italian team and be joined by assistants Fabiano Preti and Giorgio Peretti.
Juan Lucca Sacchi will be fourth official.
Di Bello also awarded 12 penalties in his 27 games last season as the 41-year-old refereed in all three UEFA competitions as well as Serie A.