Pierluigi Collina is a former Italian football referee. From 1998 to 2003, he was named “The World’s Best Referee” by the International Federation of Football History & Statistics six times in a row.

Is Pierluigi Collina retired?

After Collina’s final major international tournament, Euro 2004, he retired in 2005. Collina’s passion for football has not faded since his retirement, and Collina now serves as a non-paid consultant to the Italian Football Referees Association (AIA) and is a member of the UEFA Referees Committee.

Collina remains active in football as an unpaid consultant to the Italian Football Referees Association, as the Head of Referees for the Football Federation of Ukraine since 2010, as a member of the UEFA Referees Committee, and as the Chairman of the FIFA Referees Committee.

In September 2005, his instantly recognizable face led to his appearance in an advertisement for the Vauxhall Vectra, which aired during the 2006 World Cup in the United Kingdom. During the tournament, he also appeared in advertisements for MasterCard and Adidas. Collina appeared in another television commercial in 2006, this time for MB Pivo, a beer brand in Serbia. Due to his popularity in Turkey, Collina also appeared in an advertisement for a Turkish GSM operator, Aria.