A few years ago, Howard Webb and Bibiana Steinhaus starred in official World Cup matches, now they presume they are married
Former World Cup and Champions League final referees Stone house Howard Webb and Bibiana they are in luck, after revealing that they recently got married. The two elite officials, who have taken on the responsibility of leading matches at the top of football, officiating at five World Cups between the two, got married last month in Hannover (Germany), Steinhaus ’hometown.
So it might have been a nod to his profession, Webb wore a completely black dress, while the world equivalent of Arbitration of Brangelina (Howiana? Bibward? Webbhaus?) Posed for in her wedding photos.
“Is true. We got married during the last international stop and we are very happy“Said Bibiana, who now uses the surnames Steinhaus-Webb, in the German newspaper image. “Because of the regulations imposed by the coronavirus pandemic, unfortunately we were only able to take this important step on our own.”
“They didn’t even allow witnesses for the marriage. And, of course, we haven’t been out on our honeymoon yet”.
Webb, 49, is a former Premier League teammate who has played more than 500 top-tier competitive matches throughout his career, including the Champions League finals and the World Cup in South Africa. both disputed in 2010. Lin the World Cup final between the teams of the Netherlands and Spain was notorious for its high degree of conflict.
Steinhaus has a resume similar to having refereed at all levels of women’s football, including a Champions League final, the 2011 Women’s World Cup final in Germany and the Olympic gold medal match. Summer 2012.
The 42-year-old official made history during the 2017-18 season, becoming the first referee to oversee a men’s Bundesliga match. He was sometimes abused from the stands, but this did not stop him from enjoying an elite career, in which he was named Home Referee of the Year by the German Football Federation (DFB) in seven times. Steinhausen retired in September 2020, after officiating the German Super Cup match between Bayern Munich and Borussia Dortmund.
Howard and Bibiana served as police officers before becoming professional referees and between the two were in charge of overseeing hundreds of matches since they did their degree in 1995 and 1999, respectively.
Webb officiated 534 matches between 2000 and 2013, administering 1,694 yellow and 68 red cards. However, he later confessed to feeling “more than disappointed” at not being sent off Nigel de Jong for the trampling of Dutch player Xabi Alonso during the first half of the 2010 World Cup final. Jong managed to get out with his and be sanctioned only with a yellow card, despite having nailed his heels on Alonso’s chest. However, Webb later recalled that he failed to see the actual impact of the raid due to its location on the track; therefore, he thought the action merely deserved a warning.
According to FIFA, Steinhausen-Webb ended his career after refereeing in 23 Bundesliga matches, apart from 92 matches in the German second division and 35 in the women’s Bundesliga, where she made her collegiate debut. According to the soccer portal Soccerbase, the collegiate administered 164 yellow and 3 red cards in male competitive matches played between 2015 and 2020.
At least for now, the happy couple will reside on both sides of the Atlantic: Webb is currently based in New York City, where he works as general manager of the Major League Professional Referees Organization. Soccer; while Steinhaus lives in Germany, where he works as a VAR officer at the DFB headquarters in Cologne. Clearly, by sharing a fervent passion for maintaining law and order on the football fields, they are made for each other.
While the news of the marriage of two professional referees is something innovative, it is not entirely without precedent.
In 2019, Romania’s fourth-division clash between teams CA Oradea and CS Diosig had an unusually romantic start, as one of the referees working on the court proposed marriage to another.
In the preview of the match, the assistant referee Marius Matica knelt down and asked the question to his girlfriend Gyorgi Duma, who was leading on the other side.
Spoiler alert: She said “yes.”
ESPN correspondent in Germany Stephan Uersfeld collaborated on this note