When you are officiating a huge event like this final, you are guided by UEFA and their minute-by-minute countdown clock.
The timing of teams and match officials leaving their hotels is carefully co-ordinated.
Designated halves for the warm-up on the field of play are planned carefully to ensure no clash of the teams players before kick-off.
The kick-off time is planned to the second and this resulted in fans around the world able to enjoy that brilliant strike by Luke Shaw.
The referees in this tournament have been outstanding allowing games to flow applying some astute advantages. Even management and control of players has been terrific.
Our own referees, Anthony Taylor and Michael Oliver, delivered quality performances.
Whilst praising Kuipers for his handling of the final, I do believe that Italy’s Jorginho was fortunate to stay on the field of play.
Kuipers was close to the incident when Jorginho committed a serious foul play offence on Jack Grealish and should’ve received a red card.
One can only believe that the VAR saw it differently to me.