Goran Maric was an international referee during the 90s of the last century. He retired internationally in 2002. Now he is a businessman and it seems also a politician. The next bit is from nacional.hr, don't ask me what it all means exactly (HDZ = Croatian Democratic Union):

career

Goran Maric spent years as a leading premier league football referee, but received his doctorate in economic sciences while still working as a referee, and is now number seven on the Diaspora slate. He has an interesting career as he held directorships in the 1990s at the Hrvatska tiskara Company, the Vjesnik daily and the Tisak distributor, until he was kicked out by the administration of Ivica Racan. He is currently the director of the Stedinvest Company, and lectures to economics students. Maric is from Grude, and has lived in Zagreb since he was 18. He joined the HDZ a month ago (2007, EK) because it was felt that he could win votes in Herzegovina..

referee

He got his FIFA badge the year after he took charge of the final of the Croatia Cup in 1997. There were some doubts about that final, won by Dinamo Zagreb, the then president Tuchman's team, with a dodgy penalty near the end of the match.

In another match, Maric awarded 3 penalties to one team, Marsonia, who were thus able to enter the first league.

Internationally he did some qualifiers, just a few and his first one, for which he got good marks from the referee observer, was the one with the highest profile. He retired a year early after another falling out with the Croatian referee commission boss with whom the relation has always been bad.

Maric also became a TV analyst known as "Hawk-eye". He was usually very critical about Croatian referees.


(source: our correspondent Croref)