Bülent Yıldırım

Bülent Yıldırım — Biography

Bülent Yıldırım was born on March 1, 1972, in Kayseri, Turkey. He studied Political Science and Public Administration at the Middle East Technical University in Ankara and later worked in public-sector auditing alongside his refereeing career. He took up football refereeing in 1994 and reached the Süper Lig in the 2003-04 season, taking charge of the fourth-round match between Elazığspor and Adanaspor.

Over the course of his professional career he officiated 522 matches in Turkey's top divisions, 357 of them in the Süper Lig. On January 1, 2011, UEFA promoted him to its first-category (Premier Category) list, and between 2007 and 2015 he served as a FIFA-listed referee in numerous international fixtures.

His UEFA assignments included refereeing the final of the 2007 European Under-17 Championship and working as assistant referee at Euro 2012, including the Ukraine-Sweden and Italy-Ireland group matches and the Spain-Portugal semi-final, where he served as linesman. After failing FIFA's fitness test in 2014 he was removed from the international list; he was among the first nine referees to sign a professional contract with the Turkish Football Federation ahead of the 2015-16 season, and retired in 2019 upon reaching the age limit.