Zwayer turned down penalty appeals from Dortmund and awarded a late spot-kick to Bayern for a Mats Hummels’ handball. “You can look at a lot of the decisions in the game,” Bellingham said in a post-match TV interview. “You give a referee, that has match-fixed before, the biggest game in Germany. What do you expect?”
In response, Zwayer hit out at what he saw as “personal, disparaging and disrespectful” comments made by Bellingham.
“I would prefer to clarify this in a personal conversation with Jude Bellingham and have offered such a personal conversation to Borussia Dortmund,” said Zwayer in 2021.
“For me, it’s not about punishment, but about the realisation that he went too far. I would accept a sincere apology.
“The statement deliberately creates the false impression that I did not referee the match to the best of my ability. It is personal, disparaging and disrespectful. Even if you put yourself in the subjective perspective, which is marked by emotion, his statement is far from professional or factual.”
Uefa has chosen Zwayer and his all-German team of officials at Wednesday’s match in Dortmund, with Stefan Lupp and Marco Achmüller his assistants and the video assistant referee named as Bastian Dankert.
“We have to respect Uefa on whoever they decide to pick as ref,” said England defender Luke Shaw. “That won’t change anything for us, we just focus on the game at hand and not focus on the refs we are given.”
After the Bellingham comments, Zwayer took a two-month break from officiating. His inclusion at the Euros has not gone down well with some other former officials.
Former Bundesliga and Fifa official Manuel Grafe posted on social media after Zwayer took charge of Italy against Albania that his appointment was unfair on other refs.
“This match will go down as a great shame in the glorious history of German referees over the last decades,” he wrote.
“A referee who was involved in match fixing (and) who remained silent about it for six months until final moment, thereby enabling further manipulation, sentenced by own association, was nominated by DFB/Uefa (zero tolerance match fixing?!) for the Euro and appointed for this game. Other referees would have deserved it more…”
It will be the second time Zwayer has overseen a match involving the Dutch, having also refereed their round of 16 victory over Romania.