The Whistleblowers Trivia Quiz

Answer: Pierluigi Collina

Pierluigi Collina was born in the city of Bologna in the north of Italy. Referees don't tend to become icons of the game but through a combination of an imposing presence on the field, consistently high performance with the whistle and his distinctive appearance, Collina managed to capture the public's attention.

His popularity was such that the Italian referee even became the face of the PlayStation 2 game, 'Pro Evolution Soccer 3'.

Answer: Howard Webb

Howard Webb was born in the north of England in 1971 and worked his way up through the grassroots of the game, officiating in the Northern Counties (East) divisions as both an assistant referee (linesman) and as the man in the middle. Like most referees starting out in sport, Howard Webb had a day job; he balanced his refereeing duties - and the fitness training that it demands - with his then full-time role as a police officer.

Answer: Néstor Pitana

Néstor Pitana was born in the north of Argentina in 1975 and played football and basketball to a fairly decent level before taking up the whistle. Rather unusually for a professional football referee, Pitana had featured as an extra in a movie, a Spanish-language film called 'La Furia' (1997) or 'The Fury' in English. Needless to say his sporting career ended up being more successful than his acting pursuits!

Answer: Szymon Marciniak

Szymon Marciniak was born in 1981 in Plock, a city that can be found right in the centre of Poland. Marciniak took up refereeing when he was 21, which in the modern professional era of refereeing is considered fairly late; prior to becoming a match official, he played football for a club in his home city, Wisla Plock.

One of the many debates about referees in football - as well as in other sports such as rugby union - is whether or not having actually played the sport before becoming a match official makes that individual a better referee. Marciniak - and his celebrated performances throughout Qatar 2022 - would provide strong evidence that playing experience can be of great benefit.

Answer: Szymon Marciniak

The Ekstraklasa ("Extra Class") is the top division of domestic football in Poland though it has been known by a number of other names since it was founded back in December 1926. Some of the most successful teams in the league include Legia Warsaw, based in the Polish capital, as well as Wisla Krakow and Lech Poznan.

Szymon Marciniak began refereeing in the top flight of Polish domestic football in 2009 and shortly thereafter, in 2011, joined the list of FIFA referees. This promotion to the FIFA list made Marciniak eligible to officiate in European competitions (Europa League and UEFA Champions League) and international tournaments such as the UEFA Euro competition and the FIFA World Cup.

Answer: Pierluigi Collina

At the top of the domestic football scene in Italy sits Serie A, a league that has been in operation since the late 1890s (though the name Serie A was only adopted in 1929). By far and away the league's most successful club is Turin-based Juventus; Inter Milan and AC Milan have also amassed a significant number of championship wins between them.

Pierluigi Collina refereed in Serie C1 and C2 in the late 1980s before being promoted to the top two flights of Italian domestic football, Serie A and Serie B, in 1991. He spent 14 years refereeing in these leagues and received his much-desired FIFA listing in 1995. His first major international match was as the referee for the final of the men's football (soccer) tournament at Atlanta 1996 Summer Olympics. In this gold medal match that took place in the US state of Georgia, Nigeria beat Argentina (3-2).

Answer: Howard Webb

Compared to the FA Cup - England's most prestigious domestic cup competition that was first contested in the 1871/1872 season - the Premier League is a recent innovation. The Premier League was launched in 1992 and was then known as the FA Premier League; from 1993 to 2007 the top flight of English league football was known as the Premiership before it reverted to the Premier League name in 2016.

Howard Webb first joined the Premier League setup as an assistant referee in 1998 and he spent two years in this role whilst also refereeing in the Conference, a league much further down the pyramid. By the turn of the millennium, Webb was the man in the middle for matches across the Football League (Championship, League 1 and League 2) and by 2003 he was brought into the fold as a Premier League referee.

Answer: Néstor Pitana

The Primera Division ("First Division") is the highest league in Argentinian football and has been so since the competition was founded in 1891. The second tier is called the Primera Nacional and clubs can be relegated into this league from the Primera Division based on an averaging system that takes into account team performance and placings over three seasons. This system means a team could have a strong season but still be relegated if their performance in the prior two seasons was poor.

Néstor Pitana joined the Primera Division as a match official in 2007; alongside this he was a prominent referee in the Copa Argentina, a cup competition in the country that was revived in 2011 after a somewhat unsuccessful attempt was made at launching a domestic cup in 1969 and 1970.

Answer: Néstor Pitana

The final of the 2018 FIFA World Cup took place in the Luzhniki Stadium in Moscow, Russia. Néstor Pitana was selected as the referee for this final where France beat Croatia by four goals to two. This would be the second time in the space of four FIFA World Cup tournaments that the final was officiated by a referee from Argentina; Horacio Elizondo had control of the whistle for the final of Germany 2006 where France's Zinedine Zidane received a red card for his infamous headbutt to the chest of Italy's Marco Materazzi.

In an interview with FIFA, Néstor Pitana, when asked what it felt like to find out he would be refereeing the final of Russia 2018, he said "Very rarely have I experienced anything comparable in my life. That feeling, that excitement... For any kid who loves football, the dream is to get to the World Cup Final".

Answer: Szymon Marciniak

Poland's Szymon Marciniak had the honour of refereeing the final of the 2022 FIFA World Cup in front of a crowd of nearly 90,000 people at the Lusail Stadium in Qatar. The match was mesmerising, requiring a penalty shootout to separate Argentina and France who were tied 3-3 at the end of extra time.

Marciniak took the bold approach of awarding three penalty kicks for fouls committed in the penalty area - this is rare! It is something of an unspoken rule that the threshold for a foul in the penalty box is somewhat higher than elsewhere in the field. Marciniak's performance was widely praised.

Answer: Howard Webb

Most referees would agree that one of the markers of success is if nobody really has anything to say about their performance and - at the top end of the game - whether they can stay out of the headlines. This is not always possible and the FIFA World Cup final for South Africa 2010 is the most high profile example of where a referee will be thrust into the spotlight come what may.

Howard Webb was in charge of the final of the competition between Netherlands and Spain which was held in Soccer City, Johannesburg. An estimated 900 million people watched Netherlands and Spain compete in an ill-tempered affair which resulted in fourteen - yes fourteen - yellow cards and one red card (Netherlands' John Heitinga in extra time). A lot of post-match debate from a refereeing perspective centred on whether a red card should have been brought out at a much earlier stage in order to reduce the temperature for the remainder of the game. This tactic is not without its risks; if the teams don't respond to the red card then the match is then in serious trouble.

Dutch football legend, Johan Cruyff, was scathing about the style of play Netherlands adopted in the match stating, "...regrettably, sadly, they played very dirty. So much so that they should have been down to nine [players] immediately".

Answer: Pierluigi Collina

The FIFA World Cup for 2002 was the first time that the competition took place across two countries (South Korea and Japan) and was also the first time the tournament was held in Asia. The stylised name 'Korea Japan 2002' was also at the forefront of the trend of referring to the competition in the format of country name and year of competition.

The quality of refereeing in Korea Japan 2002 was not the highest and the tournament was mired in controversy; the handling of the quarter final between Italy and South Korea by Ecuadorian referee, Byron Moreno, was a particular low point (Moreno was removed from the FIFA list in 2003). Needless to say, the saving grace for the competition in terms of refereeing was having one of the most highly regarded match officials of all time, Pierluigi Collina, in charge of the final between Germany and Brazil. Two very early yellow cards - one for Brazil's Roque Junior and another for Germany's Miroslav Klose - brought the game under control and the match played out without controversy.