Stefano Farina (19 September 1962 in

Ovada Ovada (''Uà'' and ''Guà'' in Ligurian, ''Ovà'' in Piedmontese) is a ''comune'' (municipality) of 11,484 inhabitants in the Province of Alessandria in the northern Italian region Piedmont, located about southeast of Turin and about south of ...

– 23 May 2017Calcio mourns referee Farina
23 May 2017. Retrieved on 23 May 2017. in

Genova Genoa ( ; it, Genova ; lij, Zêna ). is the capital of the Italian region of Liguria and the sixth-largest city in Italy. In 2015, 594,733 people lived within the city's administrative limits. As of the 2011 Italian census, the Province of Ge ...

) was an Italian

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kicking a ball to score a goal. Unqualified, the word ''football'' normally means the form of football that is the most popular where the word is used. Sports commonly c ...

referee A referee is an official, in a variety of sports and competition, responsible for enforcing the rules of the sport, including sportsmanship decisions such as ejection. The official tasked with this job may be known by a variety of other titl ...

Career

In a 27-year career, he refereed several high-profile matches in

Serie A The Serie A (), also called Serie A TIM for national sponsorship with TIM, is a professional league competition for football clubs located at the top of the Italian football league system and the winner is awarded the Scudetto and the Coppa ...

and the

UEFA Champions League The UEFA Champions League (abbreviated as UCL, or sometimes, UEFA CL) is an annual club football competition organised by the Union of European Football Associations (UEFA) and contested by top-division European clubs, deciding the competit ...

, including the

2006 File:2006 Events Collage V1.png, From top left, clockwise: The 2006 Winter Olympics open in Turin; Twitter is founded and launched by Jack Dorsey; The Nintendo Wii is released; Montenegro 2006 Montenegrin independence referendum, votes to declare ...

UEFA Super Cup The UEFA Super Cup is an annual super cup football match organised by UEFA and contested by the winners of the two main European club competitions; the UEFA Champions League and UEFA Europa League. The competition's official name was originall ...

final in

Monaco Monaco (; ), officially the Principality of Monaco (french: Principauté de Monaco; Ligurian: ; oc, Principat de Mónegue), is a sovereign city-state and microstate on the French Riviera a few kilometres west of the Italian region of Lig ...

between

Barcelona Barcelona ( , , ) is a city on the coast of northeastern Spain. It is the capital and largest city of the autonomous community of Catalonia, as well as the second most populous municipality of Spain. With a population of 1.6 million within ci ...

and

Sevilla Seville (; es, Sevilla, ) is the capital and largest city of the Spain, Spanish autonomous communities of Spain, autonomous community of Andalusia and the province of Seville. It is situated on the lower reaches of the Guadalquivir, River Gua ...

. During this time, he also had an appearance in the movie '' Goal II'' as the referee of the fictional Champions League final between

Real Madrid Real Madrid Club de Fútbol (, meaning ''Royal Madrid Football Club''), commonly referred to as Real Madrid, is a Spanish professional football club based in Madrid. Founded in 1902 as Madrid Football Club, the club has traditionally wor ...

and

Arsenal An arsenal is a place where arms and ammunition are made, maintained and repaired, stored, or issued, in any combination, whether privately or publicly owned. Arsenal and armoury (British English) or armory (American English) are mostly ...

. Farina officiated in qualifiers for the

2004 2004 was designated as an International Year of Rice by the United Nations, and the International Year to Commemorate the Struggle Against Slavery and its Abolition (by UNESCO). Events January * January 3 – Flash Airlines Flight 6 ...

and

2008 File:2008 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: Lehman Brothers went bankrupt following the Subprime mortgage crisis; Cyclone Nargis killed more than 138,000 in Myanmar; A scene from the opening ceremony of the 2008 Summer Olympics in Beijing; ...

UEFA
"Israel 2-1 Russia"
17 November 2007. Retrieved on 17 May 2013. European Championships, as well as preliminary matches for the

2002 File:2002 Events Collage.png, From left, clockwise: The 2002 Winter Olympics are held in Salt Lake City; Queen Elizabeth The Queen Mother and her daughter Princess Margaret, Countess of Snowdon die; East Timor gains East Timor independence, indepe ...

FIFA
"Match Report - Portugal - Cyprus 6:0 (1:0)"
6 June 2001. Retrieved on 17 May 2013. and

World Cups. He is known to have served as a

FIFA FIFA (; stands for ''Fédération Internationale de Football Association'' ( French), meaning International Association Football Federation ) is the international governing body of association football, beach football and futsal. It was found ...

referee during the period from 2001 to 2007. He retired internationally in 2007 after reaching the mandatory retirement age of 45. He was inducted into the

Italian Football Hall of Fame The Italian Football Hall of Fame ( it, Hall of Fame del calcio italiano) is the hall of fame for association football players that have had a significant impact on Italian football. It is housed at the '' Museo del Calcio'' in Coverciano, Ital ...

in 2017.

Death

He died in Genova on 23 May 2017, aged 54.

References

External links

Farina Honoured at Monaco Date
1962 births 2017 deaths Italian football referees People from Ovada Sportspeople from the Province of Alessandria {{Italy-footybio-stub