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Profile: Urs Meier, referee
The 45-year-old Swiss grocer, who yesterday evening sported an immaculate peroxide-blond goatee beard, appears in a series of portraits on his site, the most bizarre of which has him adopting a pose reminiscent of Rodin's thinker bedecked in what looks suspiciously like a black velvet suit.
Other gems include a rundown on how Urs keeps himself in such good trim and what he thinks about television replays (waste of time - although some may disagree this morning).
His decision to disallow what England fans saw as a perfectly fine 89th-minute winning goal last night makes himself the prime topic of conversation among the millions of English workers who chose not to take an impromptu sickie.
Meier, it seems, would be comfortable with this. His refereeing ambition was, he admits, driven by a hunger for the limelight.
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"I became a referee because I didn't play football that well," he said before the start of Euro 2004. "I wanted to be involved in football at great stadiums such as the San Siro in Milan, and thought that I could eventually do so as a referee."
He has been proven right. Meier took part in both the 1998 and 2002 World Cups, when he officiated in the semi-final between South Korea and Germany.
In 2001 he was voted by a specialist panel as one of the top ten officials in the world. He was also at the 2000 European Championship in Belgium and Holland, including the England v Romania game. Meier gave the penalty against Phil Neville which resulted in England being eliminated from the tournament.
In 2002 he was the referee for the European Champions League final between Real Madrid and Bayer 04 Leverkusen in Glasgow.
He has often been at the centre of controversies, none more so than when he gave a penalty against Bob Balde of Glasgow Celtic as the club were knocked out of the Champions League last December.
Not content, apparently, with limiting his appearances to elite sporting arenas, another website features a guest appearance of Meier handing over a vacuum cleaner to a bemused charity official.
"I have spent a lot of time on mental preparation, calming down, not thinking about problems at home and the office," he explained when asked about his preparations for the finals.
"I think it's very important that you also come 'free in the head' to a tournament like this," he added, somewhat cryptically.
"Robbed is a very strong word in football," said Sven Göran Eriksson today, before pointing out that "everybody in football makes mistakes".
Exactly what the England head coach said when he went to visit Meier in his dressing room last night, he declined to share. But the referee shares no such coy qualms. "Others can judge best on how I perform as a referee," he says on his website.
It can be assumed that at least some English fans will have a little constructive criticism for the man in black, but at least some punters will still have something to cheer, as William Hill, displaying an eye for a positive spin that Peter Mandelson would be proud of, has announced it would still pay out to those who bet on Sol Campbell to score last night.
