Felix Brych: “A promise is a promise”
Without referees there would be no football matches: Felix Brych is Germany’s most successful referee.
Who is the best German football referee? Felix Brych is certainly the most successful. A 49-year-old with a PhD in law, he has officiated at the most Bundesliga matches (352 in total by the beginning of 2025) and the most games in the Champions League (69). Referees in Germany are required to belong to a club - Brych is a member of the small club SV Am Hart Munich. Their team plays in the lower amateur division, yet their referee has umpired in World Cup and European Championship matches, at the Olympic Games and in all European tournaments. He has been named referee of the year six times, and the world’s best referee twice. Nonetheless, there is one glaring gap in his career - for which his home city is to blame. Brych, who has officiated at matches featuring the greatest players of his generation, such as Messi and Ronaldo, has never been allowed to referee an FC Bayern Munich game due to a potential conflict of interest.
Even great careers have low points: the phantom goal
How does one rise so high? Lutz Wagner, a former referee for the International Federation of Association Football (FIFA) and top trainer with the German Football Association (DFB), has a simple answer: only the very best reach the top. As he once said, these are referees who “don’t look good only when the sun is shining and the home team is three nil up”. Naturally, referees are often controversial figures, not least because every fan has their own view of the game. And no career is impeccable from an objective viewpoint, either: Brych once awarded a goal during a Bundesliga match despite the ball having ended up in the goal through a hole in the net. This is something of a minor sporting legend in Germany.
And during the match in 2023 in which Brych set the record for the most games referred, he tore his cruciate ligament in the first half. This unfortunate injury reveals a lot about Brych’s character: he soldiered on at first and only bowed out at the half-time break. A day later he had promised to give a lecture to young referees. Following his injury no one expected him to come, but he limped into the lecture hall on crutches just a few minutes late: “A promise is a promise.”
Brych’s record number of matches continues to grow
A year later Brych was back on the pitch, though it was not easy at first. “I’m three metres behind during a counterattack, a second too late when the match turns, when the ball switches sides. When I’m running to catch up, I’m perhaps 25 percent less focused during the first tackle, and I’m a little less quick to act,” he said about his comeback during an interview. A year later he was back to top form and his record number of refereed games is growing from one match day to the next.
