Collina refuses to let celebrity overshadow game

If, as the old adage goes, the sign of a good referee is that he goes about his business unnoticed then Pierluigi Collina is the exception that proves the rule. Having just been voted the world's finest for the fifth successive year, he is as distinctive on the field as many of the players he clearly admires.

"There are wonderful stars in football nowadays," says the man who refereed last year's World Cup final. "In Italy we have very good players as well as Totti and Del Piero and also Nesta. Great players. Beckham is super, absolutely. Raul is another. Zidane. I can mention many, many players. I have a chance to share some times with some of them, even off the field, and they are very good men. Very good guys."

With his own internet website and a series of advertising endorsements Collina, 43 next week, can be fairly described as the world's first celebrity referee. It is a description he accepts – "you are asked for pictures, for autographs and you have to give it" – but not one he revels in. "Sometimes you cannot have your privacy, mainly when you are with your family because you prefer to stay quiet with them. You prefer to show them that the real life is not this one."

His real life is as a financial consultant working for a bank in the coastal resort of Viareggio, north of Pisa, where he lives with his wife and two young daughters. Collina, like all Serie A referees, and unlike those in the Premiership, is not professional.

He lost all his hair at the age of 24 – in just 15 days – to alopecia. Unlike the swimmer Duncan Goodhew, whose fall as a child caused a reaction, he does not know why it happened. His appearance merely accentuates his clear blue eyes which fix on to you while he talks. On the field it also makes him look sterner, angrier although his humour is obvious. His website includes a section for the "bald-headed club". Not that he is not serious about his job.

So what is it like to be regarded as the world's best? "If you understand my answer, I think it is better to have people jealous of you, than you to be jealous. I try to do my best, working hard, clearly – on the field, off the field – and nothing else," he says.

That preparation includes studying individual players – "their techniques, their abilities" – and even managers. "Different tactics can create different behaviour by the players and also by the referee. So if I know before the match it is easier for me to read," says Collina.

As such there is no 'style' of refereeing he follows. "You cannot say I will do it this way because you are not a protagonist," he explains. "Every match is different from another one. You cannot approach it in the same way. You must read the match itself because every part is different. So the ability is to react very quickly."

So what does he think of British football? "The characteristic is the will of the players to play. They are interested to play – come on, play, play, play. This is one of their characteristics so when you referee a match in England you must let the play flow. You cannot stop the game for small fouls because the players wish to play, you can see. This is a typical English characteristic."

Collina, born in Bologna, began refereeing at just 17 and spent 14 years working his way up to officiate in Italy's Serie B. Unsurprisingly, he harboured dreams of being a player. "At 14 you play football and dream to be a footballer. It is normal. And then you look at your feet and you realise it is better to follow another way." He still plays – charity matches for the Italian referees' national team where he is, to no one's surprise, a centre-half.

He professes to being unaffected whether he is a refereeing in front of 80,000 people or one – "the concentration is so high you do not realise what is surrounding you" – but realises mistakes are made. "If a player misses his first pass. He must continue, forget it, otherwise he could not play. It's the same," Collina says.

Serie A – which is back on television in this country with British Eurosport picking up the rights and launching its 7pm Sunday Scudetta programme last week – is the most scrutinised league in the world.

"We are only human. If there are 20 cameras positioned at different angles – it is not easy to compare that with just two eyes. Nowadays it is a hard job. We have to accept that there is a match played on the field and there is another shown by the television."

Collina says he does not suffer any "anxiety". "I sleep well," he says. Even his detractors – he has been described as a "dictator" in the Italian press – admit he is the bravest referee. And that may be the most valuable asset of all.