Which referee gives the most cards in the Primeira Liga?
Every card price has one official silently included in it — not one of the players. The appointment is public before kick-off, the record is measurable, and the effect on the cards markets is the largest single factor the model prices, larger than the derby, larger than the opponent. This page is the file: card and foul rates for every official on the current panel, with the sample sizes shown, because a tendency built on six matches is a rumour and one built on a hundred is a fact. The player cards guide explains how the model turns these numbers into a price.
Career rates across every season we hold, for each referee who took charge of a Primeira Liga match in 26/27. Deliberately not a next-season panel prediction — officials come and go every summer, so we profile who actually officiated. League averages: 5.17 cards and 27.2 fouls per match, a 19.0% foul-to-card conversion.
There are 19 referees on the current Primeira Liga panel with a meaningful record, plus 4 newer officials still building one. Pedro Ramalho is the strictest — 6.0 cards a match, 1.16× the league average of 5.17; Iancu Vasilica is the most lenient at 3.83 a match. These are career card rates across every season we hold, the referee-tendency map the cards model prices from — not a prediction.
The panel, strictest first
Two columns do the real work here. vs league is each referee's card rate against the average — the number the model multiplies a player's booking chance by. And conversion is the tell: foul counts barely vary between officials, but the share of fouls that become bookings varies a lot. A referee at the top of this table isn't seeing a dirtier game than one at the bottom, but reaching for the pocket where a colleague lower down would have a word. That distinction, not the raw whistle count, is where a card tendency lives.
| Referee | Matches | 26/27 | Cards / match | vs league | Fouls / match | Conversion | Reds |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Pedro Ramalho | 21 | 3 | 6.00 | 1.16× | 27.9 | 21.5% | 6 |
| Gustavo Correia | 63 | 5 | 5.97 | 1.15× | 28.5 | 20.9% | 28 |
| David Rafael Oliveira da Silva | 43 | 5 | 5.84 | 1.13× | 28.0 | 20.9% | 11 |
| Fabio Jose Costa Verissimo | 80 | 4 | 5.60 | 1.08× | 27.2 | 20.6% | 16 |
| Antonio Nobre | 62 | 1 | 5.58 | 1.08× | 28.1 | 19.9% | 26 |
| Bessa, Jose | 32 | 3 | 5.50 | 1.06× | 25.5 | 21.6% | 11 |
| Luís Godinho | 77 | 5 | 5.39 | 1.04× | 28.2 | 19.1% | 20 |
| Andre Filipe Domingues Narciso | 60 | 3 | 5.35 | 1.03× | 28.6 | 18.7% | 13 |
| Joao Antonio Ferreira Goncalves | 66 | 4 | 5.15 | 1.00× | 26.2 | 19.7% | 25 |
| Miguel Andre Monteiro Fonseca | 19 | 3 | 5.00 | 0.97× | 28.4 | 17.6% | 1 |
| Joao Pedro Pinheiro | 76 | 4 | 4.89 | 0.95× | 26.7 | 18.3% | 18 |
| Claudio Filipe Ruivo Pereira | 65 | 1 | 4.63 | 0.90× | 25.3 | 18.3% | 12 |
| Helder Filipe Claudio Carvalho | 42 | 2 | 4.55 | 0.88× | 28.6 | 15.9% | 12 |
| Sergio Guelho | 27 | 4 | 4.52 | 0.87× | 27.7 | 16.3% | 0 |
| Miguel Nogueira | 64 | 5 | 4.47 | 0.86× | 25.1 | 17.8% | 17 |
| Carlos Macedo | 44 | 4 | 4.14 | 0.80× | 27.8 | 14.9% | 10 |
| Bruno Jose Ribeiro Pires Costa | 41 | 3 | 4.10 | 0.79× | 26.6 | 15.4% | 8 |
| Anzhony Rodrigues | 21 | 2 | 4.00 | 0.77× | 26.5 | 15.1% | 2 |
| Iancu Vasilica | 40 | 3 | 3.83 | 0.74× | 26.9 | 14.2% | 9 |
The newer officials — small samples, read gently
These referees took charge in 26/27 but haven't yet built a record worth betting on — under 15 career matches, a card rate is mostly noise wearing a decimal point. We'd rather show you a thin sample labelled honestly than a confident number that hasn't been earned.
| Referee | Matches | 26/27 | Cards / match | Fouls / match |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Rosa, Diogo | 8 | 1 | 6.13 | 28.4 |
| Vitor Ferreira | 13 | 2 | 5.31 | 26.6 |
| Luis Carlos Mateus Filipe | 12 | 3 | 5.08 | 25.8 |
| Fabio Melo | 11 | 1 | 4.91 | 25.8 |
How the Primeira Liga compares
Primeira Liga is the strictest league we cover: 5.17 cards a match, 27% more than the Premier League.
| League | Cards / match | Fouls / match | Foul → card |
|---|---|---|---|
| Premier League | 4.08 | 21.9 | 18.6% |
| Bundesliga | 4.06 | 22.1 | 18.4% |
| UEFA Champions League | 3.94 | 22.0 | 17.9% |
| Championship | 4.00 | 21.9 | 18.3% |
| UEFA Conference League | 4.55 | 23.7 | 19.2% |
| EFL Cup | 3.29 | 21.0 | 15.7% |
| Eredivisie | 3.19 | 20.7 | 15.4% |
| UEFA Europa League | 4.55 | 24.2 | 18.8% |
| La Liga | 4.87 | 25.4 | 19.2% |
| Ligue 1 | 3.87 | 24.5 | 15.8% |
| UEFA Nations League | 3.97 | 22.5 | 17.7% |
| Primeira Liga you're here | 5.17 | 27.2 | 19.0% |
| Scottish Premiership | 4.02 | 22.7 | 17.7% |
| Serie A | 4.18 | 24.7 | 16.9% |
Career rates across every season we hold, built the same way in each competition. Stricter isn't better or worse — it's the baseline each referee on this page is measured against.
Other officials on record
Career records the model still uses for the matches each one covers. The season shown is the last with a Primeira Liga match on record.
Helder Malheiro 25/26 Serrano Almeida, Nuno Miguel 24/25 Ricardo Baixinho 25/26 Artur Soares Dias 23/24 Tiago Martins 24/25 Manuel Oliveira 23/24 Bruno Vieira 24/25 Manuel Mota da Silva 22/23 Rui Manuel Gomes Costa 22/23 Marcio Torres 25/26 Jorge Manuel Oliveira 23/24 Bruno Costa 24/25 Goncalo Neves 24/25 Goncalo Rafael dos Santos Neves 24/25 Joao Goncalves 25/26 Bastien Dechepy 22/23 Catarina Isabel Ferreira Campos 24/25 Joao Alexandre Bessa Silva 24/25 Pierre Gaillouste 22/23
What to do with this
A referee tendency tips a bet; it doesn't decide one. The archetypal card edge is a confluence — a combative midfielder, a strict official, a fixture with an edge to it — and the referee column is one input among several, applied to a player's own booking rate rather than replacing it. It's also worth saying plainly: the referee effect is strongest in the player to-be-carded market — and in the Primeira Liga we don't price cards at all: the card model didn't beat the base rate when we tested it here, so the referee record is shown as a record, not turned into a price. Anyone selling referee stats as a printing press is selling the fun half.
Frequently asked
Which referee gives the most cards in the Primeira Liga?
Pedro Ramalho — 6.00 cards a match, against a Primeira Liga average of 5.17, across every season on record. The table above is sorted on that number, so the next two rows are second and third. Worth reading beside the conversion column: the official at the top is not seeing a dirtier game, but reaching for the pocket where a colleague would have a word.
Which Primeira Liga referee gives the fewest cards?
Iancu Vasilica — 3.83 a match against the same 5.17 average. The gap between the two ends of the panel is the largest single factor the cards model prices, and because the appointment is published before kick-off it is measurable in advance.
How many referees are there in the Primeira Liga?
The table above lists every official who took charge of a Primeira Liga match in 26/27 and has built a meaningful record, with the newer ones shown separately rather than mixed in. The panel churns every summer, so the honest answer is whoever actually officiated — which is what this page shows, updated as the season runs.
Do referees really move card prices?
More than any other single factor in the player cards market. The table above shows how far each Primeira Liga official's card rate sits from the average — and because the appointment is public before kick-off, it's measurable in advance.
Why is this the 26/27 panel?
Because it's the one we can stand behind. The panel churns every summer — promotions, retirements, removals — so a page of officials nobody has appointed yet is partly fiction, and a season only a few matches old can't tell you who is on it either. We profile the officials who actually took charge of a Primeira Liga match in 26/27, with career numbers across every season we hold, and the page moves on once the new season has enough behind it.
What does the conversion column mean?
The share of fouls that become cards under each referee. It's the honest way to separate strict from whistle-happy: foul counts barely vary between officials, but the rate at which a foul turns into a booking varies a lot — that's where a referee's real card tendency lives.
Descriptive rates from public match data, shown with sample sizes for context. The model applies shrinkage and a confidence discount before any of this touches a price, and grades itself in public on the track record. 18+ — please gamble responsibly.