Pierluigi Collina
Pierluigi Collina ( born February 13, 1960 in Bologna ) is a former Italian football referee.
He is regarded by experts as one of the best referees in the history of football. Between 1998 and 2003 he was elected six times in a row, " World Referee of the Year " and thus holds a unique record.
Life
Collina attended the University of Bologna, where she earned in 1984 a degree in Economics.
At 24, he fell ill at the so-called "circle round hair loss " (alopecia areata ), a Autoimmunkrankeit, in which the immune system attacks the hair follicles own. In Collinas case is a severe stage of alopecia, namely a alopecia universalis, which starts at the complete body hair, what Collina lent its distinctive appearance. Because of his bald head, he received the nickname " Kojak " or " Bald Merciless".
Collina is a fan of Fortitude Bologna, one of the leading basketball clubs in Europe.
Career in football
In his youth he played as a central defender in a local football club. In 1977 he took part in a referee course, where his talent was discovered. In just three years he succeeded in addition to the obligations of military service to be used above the regional leagues. In 1988, Collina games already in the third Italian League, Serie C. After only three seasons, he was the referee Series B and Series A.
In 1995, he was, after he had passed 43 games in Serie A, was added to the list of FIFA referees. 1996, he served at the Olympic Games five football games, including the final between Nigeria and Argentina. In 1999, he finally whistled the UEFA Champions League final between Bayern Munich and Manchester United. In 2002, he reached a striking peak of his career and led the final of the soccer World Cup 2002 between Germany and Brazil, which he was the second referee after William Ling who led both finals at the Olympic Games and the World Cup.
In 2004, he headed the UEFA Cup final between Valencia CF and Olympique Marseille. The subsequent EURO 2004 was Collinas last major international tournament since he the maximum age of 45 years approached for used internationally referee.
On August 29, 2005 Collina handed in his resignation to the Italian association Associazione Italiana arbitri (AIA ). Since its advertising contractor ( Opel ) and AC Milan, a club of the first Italian League ( Serie A ) sponsored, Collina only had games of the second division ( Serie B ) may conduct, since, according to AIA through the joint sponsor his impartiality no longer would be given. On 28 December 2006 he returned to the college AIA where he volunteer took over the training of arbitrators.
Since July 5, 2010 he is the new head of the Ukrainian professional referees.
Furthermore, it was announced on 3 July 2010 that Collina was also appointed head of the UEFA Referees Committee.
Performance as a referee
Collina was known for its sometimes quite idiosyncratic rules interpretations, as he showed, for example, the first referee a replacement player a red card due to a referee insult. However, this was not the time specified in the rules of football. Meanwhile, field references against replacement players are enshrined in the rules.
About his experience of the arbitrator wrote a book, which is in nine languages. Entitled My rules of the game his observations seemed about what taught me life on football, also in German.
Collina is still true today, according to the statistics of the IFFHS, with 86 points as the world's best referee.
Popular figure
His popularity and distinctive appearance Pierluigi Collina brought a a number of advertising contracts. He made advertisement for watches, sporting goods, and frozen foods. For the fashion designer Laura Biagiotti, he went even to the catwalk. He scored with these activities up to 800,000 euros a year. The contract with the automaker Opel looked for press releases in front of around one million euros fee.
Collina is on the cover of the 3rd (2003) and 4 to see (2004) part of the famous football game Pro Evolution Soccer.
Honor
Shortly after the EURO 2004 he received an honorary Doctor of Sport Sciences for his many achievements was awarded to the sport through the northeastern English University of Hull. Collina was elected six times in a row (1998-2003) of the FIFA "World Referee of the Year ".