On Sunday, Slavko Vincic will referee the World Cup final between Argentina and Spain. It will be the last match of his career. Vincic very nearly never got here at all, and not for any reason to do with a football pitch. On the night of 30 May 2020, police raided a farm outside Bijeljina, in Bosnia, as part of an operation against an alleged prostitution and drug-trafficking ring. They detained 35 people. Among them was Vincic, who says he had travelled to the town on business and accepted what he understood to be a lunch invitation. “I found myself on this ranch by chance,” he told Slovenian television afterwards. “I accepted an invitation to lunch, which turned out to be my biggest mistake. I have nothing to do with the group that was arrested and detained, nor do my business partners.” Police seized cocaine, ten pistols, body armour, and more than ten thousand euros in cash. A year later Tijana Maksimovic, identified by investigators as the operation’s organiser, pleaded guilty to a charge of …