Sándor Puhl turns 65 years today

Sándor Puhl passed his refereeing exam at the age of fifteen and moved up the ranks step by step. His NB I debut came in 1984 when he refereed the Vasas v Csepel match at the Fáy utca stadium in Budapest. During a busy career, he blew his whistle at 225 top-flight matches.

Puhl stepped up to international level in 1988 as a member of the FIFA referees group and reached the pinnacle six years later when he led the 1994 Brazil v Italy World Cup final in the USA with his Paraguayan and Iranian assistants.

Two years later, Puhl was the referee for the 1996 European Championship semi-final between England and Germany and the following year, in 1997, he was the lead official in the UEFA Champion League final between Borussia Dortmund and Juventus. This was his second European final, having already overseen the 1993 UEFA Cup final between the same two clubs.

During the course of a stellar refereeing career, Puhl was voted the world's best referee four times in a row by the International Federation for Football History and Statistics (IFFHS) between 1994 and 1997 before retiring from refereeing at the turn of the millennium.