Spain has had, from the very beginning of football, some excellent referees who have left their mark in our country and in the world. For this reason, the RFEF Museum reserves a large showcase dedicated to the Technical Committee of Referees where treasures such as old shirts, boots, chronometers, signed cards and a mural with the pictures of all Spanish international referees from 1925 until the present day.
Visitors can find a space that pays tribute to athletes without whom football would be unthinkable: the referees. A story that began with Luis Colina, in the mid-1920s, and that included Pedro Escartin, the first Spanish to attend, as an assistant, a World Cup, in Italy in 1934. The first to referee a game was Ramon Azon, in Brazil’50. Juan Gardeazabal is the Spanish referee who had been to most World Cups. He refereed in Sweden'58, Chile'62 and England'66. In the second of them he managed the clash for third place between Chile and Yugoslavia (1-0). Mateu Lahoz became the 15th Spanish official to referee a World Cup match in 2018. In addition, the RFEF Museum keeps the cards, the equipment and even the boots, by the way still with remains of the lawn of the former Soccer City, of Howard Webb, the referee who did the 2010 World Cup final, in which Spain won the World Cup. The English referee transferred this material to the Museum of the Spanish Federation. This is just a small tribute that the Museum pays to a group that, due to its prestigious history and its professionalism and dedication in the present, also embodies the "Spain brand" throughout the world.
Source: El arbitro de futbol
