Ilija Belosevic and Mehdi Difallah will referee the 4th Panathinaikos game in a row in the upcoming EuroLeague final, while Fernando Rocha was assigned a final game despite not working in any of the semifinals.
The Euroleague has announced the referee nominations for its 2024 Final game between Real Madrid and Panathinaikos AKTOR Athens. Former top-level European referee and referee coach Todd Warnick analyzed the referee assignments, providing some historical context.
Fernando Rocha (Portugal) has been appointed as crew chief and will referee with Ilija Belosevic (Serbia) and Mehdi Difallah (France).
This is Rocha's fifth Final Four but first Euroleague final after refereeing previous consolation games in 2009, 2014, 2017, and 2019.
His nomination can also be seen as somewhat of an anomaly, as he did not referee one of this year's semifinals. There have been only three other cases in Euroleague history where a referee was nominated for a final after not officiating a semifinal (2005, 2007, 2019).
This will be Belosevic's and Difallah's fourth game in a row involving Panathinaikos, including Games 4 and 5 of PAO's quarter-final series with Maccabi Tel Aviv.
For Belosevic, this is the fifth time he has officiated Panathinaikos since the beginning of the playoffs – the Greens won all four previous encounters. Panathinaikos is also 3-0 thus far in games Difallah has refereed during this period.
Difallah is officiating in his 5th consecutive Final Four (excluding the 2020 Covid season) and refereed last season's final, in which Real Madrid defeated Olympiacos 79-78. This is Belosevic's 10th Final Four and his sixth final (2004, 2006, 2007, 2013, 2015).
Nevertheless, in recent years, the officiating in the Euroleague Final Fours – and especially the finals games – was mostly very highly praised.
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