Szymon Marciniak

Marciniak was born in 1981 in Płock, Poland. The first sport he practiced in his youth was cycling. He changed this sport for football at the age of 15. He played in the junior squad of Wisła Płock securing the fourth place at the Polish Junior Championships with the team. He also briefly played for the German Regionalliga club VfB Annaberg-Buchholz. He began his career as a football referee at the age of 21. Initially, he combined refereeing football matches with playing as an amateur footballer. In 2006, he switched to working as a football referee professionally. He officiated his first match in Poland's top professional league in 2009 at the GIEKSA Arena, in a game between GKS Bełchatów and Odra Wodzisław Śląski. Since then, he has refereed more than 300 matches in Ekstraklasa having been appointed the head referee in the 2016 Polish Cup final match as well as the 2017 Polish Super Cup. As of 2021, he has given 1201 yellow cards (on average four yellow cards per game), 79 red cards and has awarded 131 penalty kicks in over 300 Ekstraklasa matches he has refereed.

Marciniak became a FIFA referee in 2011. The same year, he also debuted as a referee in the Europa League in the qualifying match between Aalesunds FK and Ferencvárosi TC. In 2012, he refereed his first match in the UEFA Champions League between FK Ventspils and Molde FK. He refereed at 2014 FIFA World Cup qualifiers, beginning with the Group F match between Portugal and Azerbaijan. On 20 March 2015, he was appointed to the UEFA Elite referee list, finding himself among the top 27 football referees in Europe. On 30 June 2015, he was the referee for the 2015 UEFA European Under-21 Championship Final.

In March 2016, he refereed his first match in the knockout phase of the Champions League, a Round of 16 match between Real Madrid and AS Roma. One month later, he officiated the quarterfinal between Bayern Munich and S.L. Benfica. He participated in the UEFA Euro 2016 and refereed three matches: Spain-Czech Republic and Iceland-Austria in the group stage of the tournament as well as Germany-Slovakia in the knockout phase. On 29 March 2018, FIFA announced that he would officiate some matches at 2018 FIFA World Cup along with Paweł Sokolnicki and Tomasz Listkiewicz as assistant referees. He officiated two group stage matches: Argentina-Iceland and Germany-Sweden. He was also selected as the referee for the 2018 UEFA Super Cup final match between Real Madrid and Atlético Madrid. On 15 December 2021, he was appointed to referee of the semi-final match between Qatar and Algeria (1–2)…

He has two children with wife Magdalena: a son, Bartosz (born 2003) and a daughter, Natalia (born 2012). He practices Muay Thai and plays badminton as an amateur. In 2021, he was diagnosed with tachycardia after having recovered from COVID-19 infection, which prevented him from officiating matches at the UEFA Euro 2020. He is the protagonist of the Canal+ documentary series entitled Sędziowie (Referees) and Na podsłuchu presenting the work of football referees. In 2022, he appeared as a guest at the Kuba Wojewódzki talk show. He also received the Personality of the Year Award in the Piłka nożna magazine plebiscite. In 2023, he appeared in the fourth episode of the 8th edition of Polsat's TV show Hell's Kitchen. Piekielna Kuchnia. The same year, he was awarded the Laude Probus Medal by the council authorities of his hometown of Płock.

IFFHS World's Best Referee: 2022, 2023 Piłka nożna magazine Sports Personality of the Year Award: 2023 Gold Badge for Merit to Sport: 2023 Laude Probus Medal of the city of Płock: 2023

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