Slavko Vincic to referee Real Madrid vs Benfica second leg — and he's already sent off Prestianni once
UEFA have appointed Slovenian referee Slavko Vincic for the Champions League play-off second leg between Real Madrid and Benfica at the Bernabéu.
UEFA have confirmed their referee for the Real Madrid vs Benfica Champions League play-off second leg — and the appointment comes with a fair bit of backstory attached.
Vincic gets the nod
Slovenian official Slavko Vincic has been handed the whistle for what promises to be a spicy return leg at the Bernabéu. He’s very much a UEFA trust man — one of their go-to refs for the big occasions — and this one’s got a few layers to it.
The context matters here. The first leg was overshadowed by allegations that Benfica winger Gianluca Prestianni racially abused Vinícius Júnior, a case that’s currently under UEFA investigation. So the choice of referee is already getting people talking.
Vincic and Prestianni: previous
Here’s where it gets interesting. Vincic and Prestianni have history — and it’s not exactly warm.
- At the recent Club World Cup, Vincic was in charge of Benfica vs Chelsea
- Prestianni was shown a second yellow card early in extra time and subsequently shoved Cole Palmer on his way off
- Benfica were level at 1-1 at that point and ended up losing 4-1 — a proper capitulation once they went down to ten men
So the Argentine winger already knows what it’s like to be sent off by this particular official. Whether that weighs on anyone’s mind on the night is another matter, but it’s the sort of detail that makes the appointment feel a bit loaded.
Vincic’s Madrid record
This will be Vincic’s fourth time refereeing Real Madrid, and his CV with them is a mixed bag:
- Champions League Final 2024 — the 2-0 win over Borussia Dortmund at Wembley. Lovely memory for Madrid fans, that one
- This season, Bernabéu — the 1-0 home win over Benfica in the league phase
- November 2024, Bernabéu — a 1-3 defeat to AC Milan, which stung a bit
With Benfica, his Champions League record is minimal — just a 0-0 between them and PSV back in August 2021.
The rancho incident
No profile of Vincic would be complete without mentioning the absolutely mad situation he found himself in during the pandemic. In May 2020, he travelled to Suhio Polje in Bosnia-Herzegovina for what he thought were private meetings, ended up at a ranch for lunch — and the whole place got raided by Bosnian security forces as part of an operation targeting drug trafficking, prostitution and money laundering.
Vincic was questioned but released immediately and was back home in Maribor that same night. No charges, nothing further for him personally — but the image of a top UEFA referee getting caught up in a police raid on what turned out to be a mafia-linked gathering is the sort of thing that follows you around a bit.
He’s put it behind him professionally, mind. UEFA clearly still rate him, given he’s getting handed one of the most politically charged ties of this Champions League round.