The Football Ramble by Marcus Speller

Author:Marcus Speller
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Random House

Pierluigi Collina, aka the Greatest, aka the Man It’s Impossible To Do This Section Without

There are readers of a certain vintage who silently mouth the words ‘Pierluigi Collina’ just as soon as the word ‘referee’ is mentioned, like a football-themed word association test. Although retired from the game since 2005, Collina was the best there ever was, and he now heads up the referees department at UEFA.

He elevated officiating a football match to an art form, and was voted the best referee in the world for six years in a row by the International Federation of Football History and Statistics from 1998 to 2003. It’s probably near to impossible for a referee to transcend his trade, but Collina came as close as anyone to doing so.

One of the few referees untainted by the Calciopoli scandal in Italy, he was also unrivalled on the pitch. He has a bit of a penchant for hoovering up big wads of cash since retirement, taking on endorsements all over the place and also controversially assuming a lucrative role as head of referees for the Football Federation of Ukraine despite rarely visiting the country and not really having any ties there. But hey, no one’s perfect and there’s enough money swilling around football’s trough for everyone to get their snout wet. Go for it Pierluigi, that’s what I say. I’m fairly certain he even got his bald dome on the front of a FIFA video game once, and there can’t be many (if any) other referees that have done that. Lofty stuff.

The answer to your next question is Marlon Brando. The greatest (and also bald and gluttonously rich, as was Brando in his later years).

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