Referee Kirill Levnikov told how he started his professional career as a player and when he decided to become a football referee.
Levnikov made his RPL debut in April 2014, refereeing the match between Rubin and Kuban (0-2).
– I played football for a long time, starting with a school for children and young people, then I studied at the sports school of the Olympic reserve. I entered the institute in absentia and left to play in Pskov-2000, this is a second league club. Thus began the career of a professional football player. It didn’t last very long, after that I played another two years and came back to the amateur level. Played as a defender and defensive midfielder.
At a certain point, when I realized that a footballer’s career would never be at a high level, I decided to completely and radically change my life. I decided to go to the soccer school for referees. The father opened a school for a young referee. He didn’t want that and told me to play football as long as possible. It was a surprise for him when I came to the first lesson, but he couldn’t do anything,” Levnikov said in a video released by the RFU press service.
Levnikov was appointed as the chief referee for the second leg of the RPL FONBET Way semi-finals of the Russian Cup “Urals” – “Spartak”. The game will take place on Tuesday. Watch the live broadcast of the match on the channel from 4:45 p.m. (Moscow time), on the MATCH PREMIER channel from 4:55 p.m. (Moscow time), as well as on matchtv.ru and sportbox.ru websites .
Source : MatchTV

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