Article by Tudor Belivacă – Published Friday, January 16, 2026, 1:19 p.m. / Updated Friday, January 16, 2026 1:19 p.m.
The Central Commission of Referees informed UEFA at the end of last year that Alexandru Deaconu, the Romanian match observer who officiated at the semi-final between Barcelona and Inter last season, was deleted from the international list. The decision would belong to Kyros Vassaras, the head of the CCA, with whom he would have a conflict.
Alexandru Deaconu (53 years old) was the best placed Romanian observer on the UEFA list. The change would have occurred at the end of 2025, well before the deadline imposed by the international forum. The list was sent in the spring of 2025 and was supposed to be valid for 2 years, but it was changed.
Kyros Vassaras removed Alexandru Deaconu, the best placed match observer, from the UEFA list
Alexandru Deaconu
Kyros Vassaras would have informed UEFA that he was removing Alexandru Deaconu from the list, and after this was communicated, the change was made. Precisely for that reason, Alexandru Deaconu would no longer have received delegations in December, according to golazo.ro.
The decision would come as a result of an older conflict between the two people in the arbitration, according to the quoted source. Alexandru Deaconu was first removed from the position of manager of the VAR project, where he was replaced by Ovidiu Hațegan, and then came the removal from the UEFA list.
After the elimination of Alexandru Deaconu from the UEFA list, Romania was left with two international observers: Nicolae Grigorescu and Augustus Constantin. Kyros Vassaras is also a match observer on the UEFA list, but he represents Greece in the continental forum system.
Alexandru Deaconu remained in the Central Commission of Arbitrators. He has been a match observer since 2013 and had become the best placed Romanian observer on the lists of the Nyon forum. He only had important delegations, such as the Conference League semi-final in 2024 and the Champions League semi-final Barcelona – Inter from the previous season.
Alexandru Deaconu is a well-known name in Romanian football: he led CCA from 2012 to 2014, when Vassaras took over. Alexandru Deaconu was the head of the CCA during the period when Mircea Sandu was the president of the FRF. In 2014, just 3 months after the leadership of the FRF was taken over by Răzvan Burleanu, Alexandru Deaconu was replaced by Kyros Vassaras, the current leader of the CCA.
In 2023, former referee Constantin Zotta spoke about rumors of a power struggle between Kyros Vassaras and Alexandru Deaconu, who at that time was the manager of the VAR system implementation project: “I avoided saying, but eventually I will. It seems that there is an internal struggle in the CCA, between Vassaras and the one who is the VAR coordinator, that is Deaconu.
It's a big fight between them. Here, Vassaras basically gives in VAR, in the one who coordinates VAR, in VAR referees. I don't have certain information, I say what the mouth of the world says from there, from the inside”
