Key takeaways
- The Bundesliga averaged 3.82 yellows and 0.18 reds per game across 308 matches in 2025/26, with over 3.5 cards landing 54.2 per cent of the time. That is a mid table European rate, well short of Spain and Portugal.
- The two heaviest workloads in the division point in opposite directions. Felix Zwayer showed 4.83 yellows per game across 18 matches, Sven Jablonski 2.94 across 17, and Jablonski sent nobody off at all.
- Four officials in last season's table have left the pitch. Deniz Aytekin, Tobias Welz, Frank Willenborg and Patrick Ittrich worked 48 of the 308 matches, and the DFB has cut the Bundesliga pool from 24 referees to 22.
- 68.5 per cent of Bundesliga cards arrived after half time, the clearest second half skew in our data. Florian Badstübner's share was 83.9 per cent.
- Over 3.5 cards runs from 76.9 per cent with Harm Osmers to 30.8 per cent with Badstübner. As fair odds that is 1.30 against 3.25 on the same market.
On this page
- The Bundesliga card baseline for 2026/27
- Bundesliga referee card stats: every official from 2025/26
- Four referees left and took 48 matches with them
- Zwayer and Jablonski are not the same bet
- Fouls per card, the number behind the spread
- Two thirds of Bundesliga bookings land after the break
- Reds and penalties, where the averages hide the most
- Turning a Bundesliga referee rate into a priced bet
- What these Bundesliga referee stats cannot tell you
Price a Bundesliga card market off the league average and you are backing a number that no official in the division actually produces. Bundesliga referee card stats for 2026/27 start from 3.82 yellows per game, and the referees who work the division ranged from 2.31 to 5.17 last season, a spread of 2.86 cards that moves the fair price on over 3.5 cards from 3.25 to 1.33. This page gives every official who refereed a Bundesliga match in 2025/26 a card rate, a red rate, a penalty rate, a half time split and a set of over rates, and it marks the four who are no longer on the pitch. It is counted from 308 matches of event level records, which makes the Bundesliga the only domestic league on this site where we hold the minute of every card, and we reconciled the league totals against our own nine league count before publishing a single row.
The Bundesliga card baseline for 2026/27
Start with the division, because a referee number only means something measured against it. Germany is not a card heavy league by European standards, and that matters more than the rank itself: a low baseline means the referee you draw moves the total by a larger share of it.
| League | Matches | Yellows per game | Reds per game | Booking points | Over 3.5 cards | Both teams booked | Fouls per card |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Primeira Liga (POR) | 307 | 4.98 | 0.244 | 55.9 | 72.6% | 87.0% | 5.3 |
| La Liga (ESP) | 380 | 4.43 | 0.276 | 51.2 | 64.2% | 83.9% | 5.3 |
| Bundesliga (GER) | 308 | 3.82 | 0.175 | 42.6 | 54.2% | 76.9% | 5.2 |
| Ligue 1 (FRA) | 309 | 3.79 | 0.249 | 44.1 | 58.6% | 79.0% | 6.0 |
| Eredivisie (NED) | 309 | 3.26 | 0.172 | 36.9 | 42.1% | 70.9% | 6.3 |
Three numbers are worth holding. 3.82 yellows per game, 54.2 per cent over 3.5 cards, and 42.6 booking points. Against Portugal the Bundesliga shows more than a card per game fewer, and our cross league card table puts Germany inside a 0.11 card band with England, France and Italy once Spain and Portugal are stripped out. Those four leagues are, for pricing purposes, the same league.
The fouls per card column is the one most people skip. German officials let 5.2 fouls go for every card they show, which is a middling tolerance, while Dutch referees allow 6.1. A league can be strict because its football is dirty or because its referees are quick, and only this ratio separates the two. In Germany the football is clean, 20.9 fouls per game is the lowest figure in the table, and the cards come anyway.
Bundesliga referee card stats: every official from 2025/26
Twenty five officials refereed at least one Bundesliga match in 2025/26. Everything below is Bundesliga work only, so European and cup appearances are excluded rather than blended in, which matters for the handful of referees who also work Champions League nights.
| Referee | Matches | Yellows per game | Reds per game | Booking points | Over 3.5 cards | Both teams booked |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sören Storks | 12 | 5.17 | 0.500 | 64.2 | 75.0% | 83.3% |
| Tobias Welz (left the pool) | 14 | 4.93 | 0.143 | 52.9 | 78.6% | 92.9% |
| Felix Zwayer | 18 | 4.83 | 0.167 | 52.5 | 66.7% | 83.3% |
| Harm Osmers | 13 | 4.62 | 0.154 | 50.0 | 76.9% | 92.3% |
| Florian Exner | 13 | 4.54 | 0.154 | 49.2 | 53.8% | 92.3% |
| Frank Willenborg (left the pool) | 10 | 4.50 | 0.200 | 50.0 | 60.0% | 70.0% |
| Martin Petersen | 10 | 4.50 | 0.000 | 45.0 | 70.0% | 90.0% |
| Timo Gerach | 9 | 4.44 | 0.222 | 50.0 | 66.7% | 88.9% |
| Robin Braun | 9 | 4.33 | 0.222 | 48.9 | 77.8% | 77.8% |
| Daniel Schlager | 14 | 4.29 | 0.286 | 50.0 | 71.4% | 71.4% |
| Robert Schröder | 9 | 3.89 | 0.222 | 44.4 | 55.6% | 100.0% |
| Deniz Aytekin (left the pool) | 13 | 3.85 | 0.462 | 50.0 | 46.2% | 92.3% |
| Matthias Jöllenbeck | 14 | 3.71 | 0.071 | 38.9 | 57.1% | 71.4% |
| Benjamin Brand | 16 | 3.69 | 0.125 | 40.0 | 50.0% | 81.2% |
| Christian Dingert | 11 | 3.64 | 0.364 | 45.5 | 45.5% | 63.6% |
| Sascha Stegemann | 13 | 3.46 | 0.231 | 40.4 | 53.8% | 76.9% |
| Tobias Reichel | 11 | 3.45 | 0.182 | 39.1 | 45.5% | 63.6% |
| Daniel Siebert | 16 | 3.31 | 0.125 | 36.2 | 43.8% | 75.0% |
| Robert Hartmann | 13 | 3.31 | 0.077 | 35.0 | 38.5% | 61.5% |
| Tobias Stieler | 14 | 3.00 | 0.286 | 37.1 | 35.7% | 85.7% |
| Mitja Stegemann | 1 | 3.00 | 0.000 | 30.0 | 0.0% | 100.0% |
| Sven Jablonski | 17 | 2.94 | 0.000 | 29.4 | 35.3% | 64.7% |
| Bastian Dankert | 14 | 2.86 | 0.071 | 30.4 | 42.9% | 57.1% |
| Patrick Ittrich (left the pool) | 11 | 2.82 | 0.000 | 28.2 | 45.5% | 54.5% |
| Florian Badstübner | 13 | 2.31 | 0.077 | 25.0 | 30.8% | 61.5% |
| League average | 308 | 3.82 | 0.175 | 42.6 | 54.2% | 76.9% |
The distribution is not a smooth curve. Six officials sat above 4.5 yellows per game and five below 3.0, with relatively little traffic in between, which is the shape you want if you are hunting mispriced totals. Sören Storks tops the table on both yellows and reds, at 5.17 and 0.50 per game from 12 matches, and his 64.2 booking points are more than half as high again as the league average.
Read the match column before the rate column. A 9 match sample moves by 0.33 yellows per game if three bookings fall differently, so the officials at the top and bottom of the leaderboard with double figure workloads are the ones worth pricing from. The full sortable version lives on our Bundesliga referee page.
Four referees left and took 48 matches with them
This is the part a stale leaderboard gets wrong. Four of the officials above will not referee a Bundesliga match in 2026/27. Deniz Aytekin, Tobias Welz and Frank Willenborg announced their retirements in August 2025, and when the DFB confirmed its squad for the new season it named Patrick Ittrich alongside them and promoted Dr. Max Burda and Richard Hempel in their place.
| Referee | Matches 2025/26 | Yellows per game | Reds per game | Over 3.5 cards | Booking points |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tobias Welz | 14 | 4.93 | 0.143 | 78.6% | 52.9 |
| Frank Willenborg | 10 | 4.50 | 0.200 | 60.0% | 50.0 |
| Deniz Aytekin | 13 | 3.85 | 0.462 | 46.2% | 50.0 |
| Patrick Ittrich | 11 | 2.82 | 0.000 | 45.5% | 28.2 |
Those four worked 48 of the 308 matches, a little under one in six, and they were not a random sample of the pool. Welz was the second strictest official in the division. Aytekin had the highest red card rate of anyone with a double figure workload, 6 dismissals in 13 matches. Ittrich was the second most lenient. Removing them tightens the top of the table and loosens the bottom.
The squad also shrank. The DFB cut the Bundesliga list from 24 referees to 22, saying explicitly that the point is to give each official more matches. On 306 league fixtures that moves the average workload from 12.8 matches to 13.9, so by spring the individual samples on this page will be worth more than they were last season. Burda and Hempel arrive with no Bundesliga history at all, which is a real gap rather than a number we can estimate: treat their early matches as unpriced.
Zwayer and Jablonski are not the same bet
The cleanest comparison in the data is the one with the least excuse attached. Felix Zwayer worked 18 Bundesliga matches last season and Sven Jablonski worked 17, the two heaviest workloads in the division, and they are a long way apart.
Zwayer showed 87 yellows and 3 reds in 18 matches, a rate of 4.83 and 52.5 booking points. Jablonski showed 50 yellows and no reds at all in 17, a rate of 2.94 and 29.4 booking points. That is a gap of 1.89 yellows per game between two officials refereeing the same fixtures in the same season, and the booking points gap of 23.1 is larger than the difference between the Bundesliga and the Primeira Liga as whole leagues.
It shows up where you would bet it. A Zwayer match beat 3.5 cards 66.7 per cent of the time and a Jablonski match 35.3 per cent. Over 4.5 cards is starker still, 44.4 per cent against 11.8. A book that prices the division rather than the appointment is offering you the same line twice and only one of them is right.
Neither number is a small sample artefact in the way a 9 match rate can be. Both officials worked more than a fifth of the season, both have refereed in the Bundesliga for years, and Zwayer also sits 1.02 cards above the league average on our wider cross league count. When two large samples disagree this hard, the referee is the variable.
Fouls per card, the number behind the spread
Why does the spread exist? It is not that strict referees get violent matches. Fouls per card answers it directly: divide fouls awarded by cards shown and you have how much a referee tolerates before reaching for a pocket.
| Referee | Matches | Fouls per game | Cards per game | Fouls per card |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sören Storks | 12 | 20.2 | 5.67 | 3.6 |
| Harm Osmers | 13 | 19.9 | 4.77 | 4.2 |
| Felix Zwayer | 18 | 21.1 | 5.00 | 4.2 |
| Florian Exner | 13 | 21.1 | 4.69 | 4.5 |
| League average | 308 | 20.9 | 4.00 | 5.2 |
| Bastian Dankert | 14 | 18.6 | 2.93 | 6.3 |
| Robert Hartmann | 13 | 23.2 | 3.38 | 6.8 |
| Sven Jablonski | 17 | 21.4 | 2.94 | 7.3 |
| Florian Badstübner | 13 | 22.2 | 2.38 | 9.3 |
The range is enormous. Badstübner allowed 9.3 fouls per card and Storks 3.6, which means the same tackle count produces roughly two and a half times as many bookings under one official as the other. Badstübner is not refereeing calmer matches either: at 22.2 fouls per game he saw more foul play than the league average and carded less of it than anyone.
This is the measure to reach for when a referee has a short sample. Fouls per card stabilises faster than cards per game, because it is a ratio of two things the referee controls rather than a count that depends on how spiky the fixtures were. If a new appointment has eight matches of data, the tolerance ratio will tell you more about the next one than the raw rate will.
Two thirds of Bundesliga bookings land after the break
Here is the finding that card market content almost never carries, because most sources have no card minutes at all. Across the whole 2025/26 Bundesliga season, 31.5 per cent of cards were shown in the first half and 68.5 per cent in the second.
| Referee | Matches | First half share | Second half share |
|---|---|---|---|
| Florian Badstübner | 13 | 16.1% | 83.9% |
| Martin Petersen | 10 | 22.2% | 77.8% |
| Robert Schröder | 9 | 24.3% | 75.7% |
| Tobias Reichel | 11 | 25.0% | 75.0% |
| Matthias Jöllenbeck | 14 | 26.4% | 73.6% |
| League average | 308 | 31.5% | 68.5% |
| Felix Zwayer | 18 | 35.6% | 64.4% |
| Tobias Stieler | 14 | 37.0% | 63.0% |
| Daniel Siebert | 16 | 38.2% | 61.8% |
| Robert Hartmann | 13 | 38.6% | 61.4% |
| Sven Jablonski | 17 | 40.0% | 60.0% |
Badstübner is the extreme in both directions at once. He books less than anyone and he books almost nothing before the interval: 16.1 per cent of his cards came in the first half, so a first half card market under his name is a different proposition from the same market under Robert Hartmann at 38.6 per cent. Across 13 matches that is roughly five first half cards from Badstübner where the league rate would predict twelve.
Two cautions. The split counts the minute the source records, so a card in first half stoppage time is filed at 45 and lands on the first half side, while anything after the restart is second half. And a card share is not a card count: a referee with a high second half share and a low overall rate is still a low total. Use the share to split a total you have already set, not to set one.
Reds and penalties, where the averages hide the most
Dismissals are rare enough that a season of data is a thin sample for any one official, which is exactly why the league average misleads. The Bundesliga sent off a player every 5.7 matches in 2025/26 and awarded a penalty every 3.6.
| Referee | Matches | Reds | Reds per game | Penalties | Penalties per game |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sören Storks | 12 | 6 | 0.500 | 2 | 0.17 |
| Christian Dingert | 11 | 4 | 0.364 | 1 | 0.09 |
| Daniel Schlager | 14 | 4 | 0.286 | 3 | 0.21 |
| Tobias Stieler | 14 | 4 | 0.286 | 4 | 0.29 |
| Matthias Jöllenbeck | 14 | 1 | 0.071 | 8 | 0.57 |
| Robin Braun | 9 | 2 | 0.222 | 5 | 0.56 |
| Florian Exner | 13 | 2 | 0.154 | 6 | 0.46 |
| Bastian Dankert | 14 | 1 | 0.071 | 1 | 0.07 |
| Florian Badstübner | 13 | 1 | 0.077 | 1 | 0.08 |
| League average | 308 | 54 | 0.175 | 86 | 0.28 |
Storks is the outlier that matters for booking points markets, where a red is scored at 25 against a yellow's 10. Six dismissals in 12 matches is one every other game, against a league rate of one every 5.7, and combined with the highest yellow rate in the division it is what lifts him to 64.2 points per game. Our booking points guide sets out why that scoring makes the red card line the one worth checking last.
Penalties run on a separate axis entirely. Matthias Jöllenbeck awarded 8 penalties in 14 matches, a rate of 0.57, while Bastian Dankert gave 1 in 14 and Badstübner 1 in 13. Nothing in a referee's card profile predicts this: Jöllenbeck is a mid table booker with the lowest red rate but one in the set. If you bet penalty or anytime goalscorer markets, that is the column to read, and our VAR guide covers how review changes the number.
Turning a Bundesliga referee rate into a priced bet
A card rate is not a bet until it is a price. The over rate does the conversion for you, because it is already a probability: invert it and you have fair decimal odds with no margin in them.
| Referee | Matches | Over 2.5 cards | Over 3.5 cards | Fair odds, over 3.5 | Over 4.5 cards | Fair odds, over 4.5 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Robin Braun | 9 | 77.8% | 77.8% | 1.29 | 44.4% | 2.25 |
| Harm Osmers | 13 | 92.3% | 76.9% | 1.30 | 53.8% | 1.86 |
| Sören Storks | 12 | 75.0% | 75.0% | 1.33 | 58.3% | 1.71 |
| Daniel Schlager | 14 | 92.9% | 71.4% | 1.40 | 35.7% | 2.80 |
| League average | 308 | 73.1% | 54.2% | 1.84 | 36.4% | 2.75 |
| Robert Hartmann | 13 | 76.9% | 38.5% | 2.60 | 23.1% | 4.33 |
| Tobias Stieler | 14 | 71.4% | 35.7% | 2.80 | 28.6% | 3.50 |
| Sven Jablonski | 17 | 58.8% | 35.3% | 2.83 | 11.8% | 8.50 |
| Florian Badstübner | 13 | 38.5% | 30.8% | 3.25 | 7.7% | 13.00 |
The fair odds column is the whole argument in one place. The same over 3.5 cards market is worth 1.30 with Harm Osmers and 3.25 with Florian Badstübner, while a book pricing the division sits at 1.85 for both. Over 4.5 cards stretches further still, from 1.86 to 13.00. You are not looking for a referee who shows a lot of cards, you are looking for daylight between the posted price and the name on the appointment sheet.
Three disciplines keep it honest. Weight by sample, so Zwayer's 18 matches outrank a 9 match rate. Expect the fixture to move it, because a mid table Saturday afternoon is not a Revierderby whatever the official's record. And check the appointment before you price anything, since the sheet is published shortly before each round and we track it on the appointments page. How referee stats win card bets walks the full process, and the Premier League version of this page shows how much flatter the English spread is.
One more thing is changing underneath all of it. The IFAB laws of the game changes for 2026/27 make a red card arising from a clearly incorrect second yellow reviewable by VAR, which should trim a small number of dismissals. None of it is in the numbers above, because our sample ends with 2025/26. Measure the new season rather than adjusting your prices for it now.
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What these Bundesliga referee stats cannot tell you
Four limits, stated plainly, because a number you cannot audit is worth nothing.
One season, not a career. Our Bundesliga set covers 2025/26 only, so every rate here is a season rate rather than the twenty year career average we can show for English and Scottish officials. The sample holds 308 matches against the division's 306 league fixtures, because the source files two further matches under the same competition, and those two carried 11 yellows and 2 reds between them. Counting the 306 league games alone gives 3.81 yellows per game, which is the figure in our football-data.co.uk based cross league table.
No 2026/27 matches are included. The season kicked off on 28 August 2026 and nothing from it is in these rates. Early season card rates are also the least reliable numbers in football: six or seven matches per referee moves a rate by half a card on a couple of bookings.
Two of the 22 officials are missing entirely. Burda and Hempel have no Bundesliga record for us to publish, and we would rather show a gap than a 2. Bundesliga rate dressed up as a top flight one.
Names come from source strings. Some arrive without their diacritics, which is why a few referee pages still read Badstubner or Jollenbeck. We join those to full names rather than guessing, and anything ambiguous goes to a review queue instead of being merged. Our methodology page sets out which fields exist for which competition and how the booking points model works.
That is the honest edge of this data set. Used with the appointment sheet and a sense of sample size, the referee is still the most reliably mispriced input in a Bundesliga card market.