There are two major facts which connect Pierluigi Collina to Lazio.
Pierluigi Collina was born in Bologna on February 13 1960. He graduated in Economics in 1984 at the University of Bologna. It was at this time he started losing his hair due to Alopecia. This would later add to his iconic and charismatic status as a referee. In 1991 he moved to Viareggio in Tuscany to work as a financial consultant hence becoming "Signor Collina di Viareggio".
He started his refereeing career at professional level in 1988 and in 1991 started games in Serie B and A. In 1994 he became a UEFA and FIFA referee. His international debut came in a Turkey vs France game on March 8 1995.
He is universally recognised as one of the best referees in the history of football.
He was in charge of the famous Champions League final in 1999 when Manchester United beat Bayern Munich in the dying seconds. He also refereed the World Cup final between Brazil and Germany in 2002 and the Olympic final of 1996 between Argentina and Nigeria. He refereed in two World Cups and a European Championship. Another prestigious game was the 2004 UEFA Cup final between Olympique Marseille and Valencia.
In his career he refereed 240 games in Serie A, 79 in Serie B, 42 in Coppa Italia (including 3 finals), 2 Italian Supercoppa finals and 109 internationals.
In 2005 after 28 years of career he resigned from AIA (Italian Referee Association). This was due to some controversy over some advertising contracts with Opel who were A.C Milan's sponsor at the time. He was initially demoted to Serie B but then decided to retire.
In 2006, rehabilitated, he became an AIA consultant and from 2007 to 2010 was the Serie A referee designator (in charge of choosing the referees for each match).
In 2010 he became UEFA referee designator, a job he held until 2017.
In 2017 he became President of the FIFA Referee Commission.
In his career he won plenty of awards including being voted Referee of the Year by IFFHS (International Federation of Football History and Statistics) in five consecutive seasons from 1998 to 2003.
In a Lazio connection he is remembered for two things. Firstly, he was the referee in the famous Perugia vs Juventus game on May 14 2000. In the last game of the season, with the Biancocelesti and Bianconeri battling for the Scudetto, at the end half of the first half in Perugia the heavens opened and the game had to be postponed for 71 minutes. Meanwhile Lazio beat Reggina 3-0 at home and waited and waited… Collina tried out the pitch several times and despite the fact that it looked almost unplayable he decided to restart. The rest is history with Alessandro Calori's goal giving Perugia the win and Lazio their second Scudetto.
Five years later during a lecture he was giving on health and exercise science at the Medicine and Surgery Faculty at the University of Parma he confessed, "As a boy I supported Bologna, my hometown. I then became fascinated by another Eagle, besides Fortitudo in basketball (one of Bologna's two main teams), Lazio. At 14 I played as a sweeper and I greatly admired Pino Wilson". Therefore, Collina was a Lazio sympathiser.
Not that this would ever have affected his decisions. He refereed many Lazio games and blew for and against. In fact, in his first nine matches Lazio never won...you don't become one of the best referees in history by being affected by childhood affections.
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