Bülent Yıldırım

Bülent Yıldırım — Biography

Bülent Yıldırım was born on 1 March 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 1 January 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.