Picture : Pierluigi Collina received the 1998 IFFHS Trophy from the hands of Franz Beckenbauer, Germany’s “Kaiser Franz”.

IFFHS – THE WORLD’S BEST REFEREE 1998, 1999, 2000, 2001, 2002, 2003 : PIERLUIGI COLLINA (ITALY)

PRESENTATION

Born 13 February 1960 in Bologna (Italy), Pierluigi Collina is considered to be one of the greatest football referee in the history. He was crowned 6 times THE WORLD’S BEST REFEREE by IFFHS from 1998 to 2003 (!) and in 2010, the IFFHS nominated Pierluigi Collina the World’s Best Referee of the last 25 years !

During his youth years, Pierluigi played as defender before to take the referee’s way. Within three years, he officiated at the highest level of regional matches and in 1988, he progressed to the national third division. Three seasons later in 1991, he became Serie A Referee until 2005 ! In 1995, he was placed on FIFA’s referee list and at the Olympic Games 1996 in Atlanta (USA), he whistled 5 matches included the final between Nigeria and Argentina. Quickly, his reputation was growing and in 1999, he was the referee of the UEFA Champions League final between Manchester United and Bayern München.

In june 2002, he was at the top of his career with the final of the FIFA World Cup between Brazil and Germany. He refereed 4 Finals of Coppa Italia, 2 finals of Supercoppa Italian and also the 2004 UEFA Cup Final between Valencia and Marseille. He finished his career in 2005 with his last international match Portugal against Slovakia in Lisbon.

After his retirement, he continued to be involved in the Referee World of football. He was consultant for Italian’s referee Association, Head of Ukraine’s referees , member of the UEFA Referee Committee and is today President of the Referee Commission of FIFA, introducing the VAR at the World cup 2018 in Russia.