Béla Réthy

When Réthy was born in Vienna,^[1][2] his parents had to leave their home country because of the 1956 Hungarian Revolution.^[3] They emigrated to Brazil where they stayed until they went to Germany in 1968.^[4] Réthy obtained his Abitur certificate at Gutenbergschule Wiesbaden [de]^[5] so he was able to attend Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz where he studied literature and journalism.^[6] In the meantime he worked in the sports archive of the ZDF and became a freelancer later.^[7] Since 1987, he has been a full-time broadcaster.^[6]

His first live broadcast was during an international football match between the under-16 teams of Germany and Ireland in 1991.^[8] He has commentated at the finals of:

• the Euro 1996 (Germany vs. Czech Republic) in England^[6]
• the 2002 FIFA World Cup (Germany vs. Brazil) in Japan and South Korea^[6]
• the Euro 2004 (Portugal vs. Greece) in Portugal^[6]
• the 2010 FIFA World Cup (Spain vs. Netherlands) in South Africa^[6]
• the Euro 2012 (Spain vs. Italy) in Poland and Ukraine^[6]
• the 2018 FIFA World Cup (France vs. Croatia) in Russia^[6]

In addition, he has also commentated the UEFA Champions League finals of 2013, 2014 and 2015.^[9]

Réthy speaks German, Hungarian, Portuguese and English fluently, as well as French and Spanish.^[4]

• Réthy, Béla; Psotta, Kai (2014). Live die Länderspiele meines Lebens (in German). Köln: Lübbe. ISBN 978-3-7857-2496-5. OCLC 864650341.