Colombian referee Wilmar Roldan has been appointed to Copa Libertadores matches for 15 consecutive years, since he made his appearance in the contest in 2018. With this week’s match between Cerro Porteno from Paraguay and Curico Unido from Chile, Roldan will have 107 matches refereed in 16 consecutive editions of the CONMEBOL Libertadores, establishing a record among South American referees. In these 107 games, he has awarded 575 yellow cards, 33 red cards and 38 penalty kicks.
Roldan started refereeing at the age of 12, in local and regional competitions. His debut in a professional match was on 23 February 2003, in a match between Millonarios and Once Caldas. He earned the FIFA badge in January 2008 at the age of 28. The graduate in Physical Education from the Latin American Autonomous University, also became one of the youngest referees to whistle a Libertadores game, in the 2008 quarter-final between Boca Juniors and Atlas de Guadalajara, when he was only 28. Roldan has also been present in the Copa Sudamericana, the 2011 Copa America and the 2012 Olympic Games. He attended two World Cups (2014 in Brazil and 2018 in Russia), the Confederations Cup in 2017 and refereed the 2015 Copa America final.
Source: El Colombiano
