Roberto Rosetti

Roberto Rosetti
Rosetti in 2009
Full name Roberto Rosetti
Born (1967-09-18) 18 September 1967 (age 59)
Turin, Italy
Other occupation
 Football referee, hospital manager, and financial advisor
Domestic
Years League Role
1994–1997 Serie C Referee
1997–2010 Serie A and B Referee
International
Years League Role
2002–2010 FIFA Referee

Roberto Rosetti (born 18 September 1967) is an Italian former football referee.

Rosetti is counted amongst the top referees of all time in a list maintained by the International Federation of Football History and Statistics (IFFHS). He won the Serie A Referee of the Year award for four consecutive seasons between 2006 and 2009, and was named IFFHS World's Best Referee in 2008. He retired following the 2010 FIFA World Cup to take a position with the Italian Football Federation as the referee designator for Serie B League. He was inducted into the Italian Football Hall of Fame in 2015.

Luciano Moggi, then general director of Juventus, had described Rosetti and his colleague Pierluigi Collina as being too 'objective' in an intercepted telephone call. Moggi also claimed that Rosetti and Collina should be 'punished' for decisions made against Juventus in that same phone call.

Rosetti is currently the Chief Refereeing Officer and Chairman of the Referees Committee at UEFA.

Early and personal life

Rosetti was born in Turin, Piedmont, in 1967. Aside from his refereeing duties, Rosetti has also worked as a hospital manager and as a financial advisor. He is fluent in Italian (native), English, and French. He enjoys playing tennis in his free time.

Career

Early career

Rosetti first began refereeing matches in 1983, at the age of 16. He offciated his first match in the Italian Serie B at the age of 29 in 1997, and the following year, he made his Serie A debut on 19 April, taking charge of a 2–0 Sampdoria victory at Napoli; he also won the "Giorgio Bernardi" Award that year, for the best young rookie referee in Serie A.

He received his FIFA Badge and made his international debut as a referee in 2002. Later that spring, he officiated at the UEFA European Under-17 Championship, including the final between Switzerland and France, with the former team prevailing 4–2 on penalties after a goalless draw. The following year, he officiated the 2003 FIFA U-20 World Cup final between Brazil and Spain, with the former nation winning 1–0.

Rise to prominence and Euro 2008

In the summer of 2005, Rosetti took charge of three games at the FIFA Confederations Cup in Germany. The following summer, he was the only Italian referee chosen to participate in the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany, where he took charge of four matches, a single-tournament record for an Italian referee; standing at 1.90m, he was also the tallest official at the tournament.

Rosetti officiated the 2007 Supercoppa Italiana between Inter and Roma on 19 August, with the latter side winning 1–0. He was one of the many referees who officiated in the 2007–08 UEFA Champions League. He refereed the second leg of the semi-final between Chelsea and Liverpool at Stamford Bridge, with Chelsea winning 3–2 and advancing to the final 4–3 on aggregate.

Rosetti was selected to referee at UEFA Euro 2008 in Switzerland and Austria.

At the tournament, Rosetti was the referee for the:

In 2008, he was named IFFHS World's Best Referee.

Rosetti was one of the many referees who officiated in the 2008–09 UEFA Champions League, including the second leg of the semi-finals, with Manchester United defeating Arsenal 3–1 at the Emirates Stadium, to advance to the final 4–1 on aggregate; during the match, Rosetti sent-off Manchester United's Darren Fletcher for a 75th-minute challenge on Cesc Fàbregas.

2010 World Cup and retirement

Rosetti was preselected as a referee for the 2010 FIFA World Cup in South Africa. His first match of the tournament was a 1–1 draw between Ghana and Australia. Rosetti sent Australia's Harry Kewell off for handling the ball on the goal line, awarding Ghana a penalty kick. The next game he refereed was the Argentina–Mexico game in the Round of 16, which Argentina won 3–1; the match was surrounded by controversy, however, as Rosetti and his team of officials incorrectly allowed Carlos Tevez's opening goal to stand, even though replays later showed that it should have been ruled out for offside. Rosetti was later left off the list of 19 referees announced by FIFA to take part in the rest of the competition although football's world governing body did not explain why. This decision affected Rosetti greatly and was the major reason behind his immediate retirement following the tournament, although he denied that it was his error that led him to retire.

Throughout his refereeing career, Rosetti officiated three Coppa Italia finals and three consecutive UEFA Champions League semi-finals. In total, he served as a referee in the Italian top flight for 13 seasons, taking charge of 189 Italian top-flight matches, including five Milan derbies, three Rome derbies, and four Genoa derbies. He was named best Italian referee by the Association of Italian Footballers (AIC) for four consecutive years between 2006 and 2009.

Later career

Following his retirement from refereeing in 2010, Rosetti was appointed to lead a committee of the Association of Italian Referees (AIA) of Serie B.

Rosetti was hired by the Russian Football Union in 2011 to oversee the domestic referees' department but resigned in 2013 for family reasons.

In 2014, he was named the head and designator of the C.A.N. PRO (Commissione Arbitri Nazionale per la Lega Pro – the national referee commission for the third-flight of Italian football), before moving abroad.

He was inducted into the Italian Football Hall of Fame in 2015.

In 2018, UEFA announced that Rosetti would become their Chief Refereeing Officer and Chairman of the Referees Committee, succeeding Pierluigi Collina, who became chairman of FIFA's referees committee. Collina assigned Rosetti to be the VAR Refereeing Project Leader at the 2018 FIFA World Cup to help implement the VAR system.

Major matches refereed

Date Match Tournament Ref
29 June 2008 Germany vs Spain (0–1) UEFA Euro 2008 Final

Honours

References

  1. 1 2 3 4 "Roberto Rosetti". Rate The Ref. Archived from the original on 24 October 2008. Retrieved 19 June 2010.
  2. ↑ "IFFHS Dashboard". 10 April 2020.
  3. 1 2 3 "Former Results". IFFHS.de. Archived from the original on 24 September 2019. Retrieved 3 December 2017.
  4. 1 2 3 "Hall of fame, 10 new entry: con Vialli e Mancini anche Facchetti e Ronaldo" [Hall of fame, 10 new entries: with Vialli and Mancini also Facchetti and Ronaldo] (in Italian). La Gazzetta dello Sport. 27 October 2015. Retrieved 27 October 2015.
  5. ↑ © international hazma. "Roberto Rosetti". WorldReferee.com. Archived from the original on 3 March 2016. Retrieved 19 June 2010.
  6. ↑ "Composition of the UEFA Organs and Bodies 2023 – 25/27" (PDF). UEFA. 10 October 2023. Retrieved 7 November 2023.
  7. ↑ Chaplin, Mark (28 June 2008). "Il sogno di Rosetti diventa realtà". Retrieved 12 August 2026.
  8. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 "Referee Rosetti blows final whistle on career". UEFA.com. 8 July 2010. Retrieved 12 August 2026.
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 "Roberto Rosetti" (in Italian). www.figc.it. Retrieved 12 August 2026.
  10. 1 2 3 4 5 "Rosetti 'delighted' to referee final | UEFA EURO 2008". UEFA.com. 23 June 2008. Retrieved 12 August 2026.
  11. ↑ "Serie A: rischio Sampdoria per il Napoli". Il Sole 24 ORE (in Italian). 7 January 2017. Retrieved 12 August 2026.
  12. ↑ "France-Switzerland UEFA Under-17 2002 Final". UEFA.com. Retrieved 12 August 2026.
  13. ↑ "Every FIFA U-20 World Cup final". www.fifa.com. 8 October 2025. Retrieved 12 August 2026.
  14. ↑ "Inter 0–1 Roma" (in Italian). Inter.it. 19 August 2007. Retrieved 11 September 2026.
  15. ↑ "Rafa Benitez wants strong referee at Chelsea". Telegraph. 29 April 2008. Retrieved 19 June 2010.
  16. ↑ "Chelsea 3-2 Liverpool (4-3)". BBC Sport. 30 April 2008. Retrieved 12 August 2026.
  17. ↑ Referees named for EURO 2008, uefa.com, 19 December 2007
  18. 1 2 "Euro 2008: Lehmann lays into 'biased' referee following Germany defeat". The Guardian. 30 June 2008. Retrieved 12 August 2026.
  19. ↑ Hughes, Matt (6 May 2009). "Sympathy no consolation for Darren Fletcher". The Times. Archived from the original on 8 May 2009. Retrieved 19 June 2010.
  20. ↑ "Manchester United cannot reverse Darren Fletcher red card, says Uefa". The Guardian. 6 May 2009. Retrieved 12 August 2026.
  21. ↑ "Arsenal 1-3 Man Utd (agg 1-4)". BBC Sport. 5 May 2009. Retrieved 12 August 2026.
  22. ↑ Middleton, Dave (20 June 2010). "Harry Kewell says Italian referee 'killed' his World Cup". The Guardian. Retrieved 12 August 2026.
  23. ↑ Johnson, Dale (18 October 2023). "How VAR could have changed soccer's most controversial moments". www.espn.co.uk. Retrieved 12 August 2026.
  24. ↑ "Yahoo UK & Ireland - Sports News | Live Scores | Results".
  25. ↑ "World Cup 2010: Carlos Tevez knew he was offside for Mexico opener". The Guardian. 28 June 2010. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  26. ↑ http://www.chroniclejournal.com/stories_sports.php?id=276382[permanent dead link]
  27. ↑ "Referee Rosetti steps down after World Cup error". Reuters. 8 July 2010. Archived from the original on 7 November 2017. Retrieved 7 November 2017.
  28. ↑ "Biografia di Roberto Rosetti" (in Italian). www.cinquantamila.it. Retrieved 12 August 2026.
  29. ↑ "Soccer-Ivanov to replace Rosetti as Russian referees' chief". Reuters. 30 December 2013.
  30. ↑ "Roberto Rosetti succeeds Pierluigi Collina as UEFA's chief refereeing officer". UEFA. 1 August 2018.
  31. ↑ Marcotti, Gabriele (13 August 2018). "World Cup ref chief Pierluigi Collina dishes on VAR impact at Russia 2018". ESPN.
  32. ↑ "VAR at the 2018 FIFA World Cup". FIFA.
  33. ↑ "Full-time report Germany–Spain" (PDF). UEFA. 29 June 2008. Archived from the original (PDF) on 4 December 2012. Retrieved 9 June 2012.
  34. ↑ "A Cannavaro l'Oscar 2006". Eurosport (in Italian). 29 January 2007. Retrieved 2 March 2021.
  35. ↑ "Trionfa ancora Kakà". Eurosport (in Italian). 28 January 2008. Retrieved 2 March 2021.
  36. ↑ "Ibrahimovic e la Juve i più bravi del 2008". la Repubblica (in Italian). 20 January 2009. Retrieved 2 March 2021.
  37. ↑ Masiello, Vince (19 January 2010). "Ex-Inter Star Zlatan Ibrahimovic Wins 2009 'Oscar Del Calcio'". Goal.com. Retrieved 2 March 2021.