Two Israeli match officials have been entrusted with fixtures in the opening qualifying rounds of Europe's second- and third-tier club competitions, according to a report published this week in the Israeli press. David Fuksman and Snir Levi will each take charge of a second qualifying-round tie, extending Israel's presence on the continental refereeing stage even as the game's international politics remain fraught.
Fuksman has been assigned a UEFA Conference League qualifier between the Romanian side commonly known as Steaua Bucharest — competing under the name FCSB — and the Latvian club Auda of Riga. The reported fixture matches UEFA's published second qualifying-round pairing of FCSB and Auda, whose two legs are scheduled for 23 and 30 July 2026, with the first leg staged in Bucharest.
Levi, for his part, is listed to officiate a UEFA Europa League qualifier between the Norwegian club Tromso and the Czech side Hradec Kralove. The competition record confirms the two teams were drawn together in the Europa League second qualifying round, with the first leg at Tromso's Romssa Arena on 23 July and the return in Hradec Kralove on 30 July 2026.
The original report also named accompanying crews of assistant referees expected to travel with each official, framing the appointments as Israeli representatives who would serve through the summer rounds. The identities of the two centre officials check out against public refereeing records: Fuksman and Levi both appear in international match-official databases with prior European and Israeli top-flight assignments.
The rounds and the club pairings are independently corroborated by UEFA's own match listings and the tournament qualifying records. What could not be independently confirmed from UEFA's public pages at the time of writing were the referee appointments themselves, which rest on the single Israeli-language report and, in Levi's case, a secondary refereeing-statistics entry pointing to the same tie.
The assignments arrive against a charged backdrop, with Israeli clubs and officials continuing to feature in UEFA competitions amid periodic debate over their participation. For the Israel Football Association's refereeing department, appointments to cross-border ties in the qualifying phase are a familiar route by which its officials build the record needed for higher-profile group-stage and knockout work.
Until UEFA formally publishes its officiating list for each leg, the specific match, leg and kick-off for each referee should be read as attributed to the reporting rather than confirmed by the governing body. The competition, round and clubs, however, align cleanly with the official calendar for the second qualifying rounds of both the Europa League and the Conference League.
