Claudio Circhetta (born 18 November 1970) is a Swiss former

football Football is a family of team sports that involve, to varying degrees, kick (football), kicking a football (ball), ball to score a goal (sports), goal. Unqualified, football (word), the word ''football'' generally means the form of football t ...

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 title ...

. As a player in the Swiss junior leagues for over 20 years, Circhetta often disagreed with the referees, but instead of criticising them, he became a referee himself in 1988. In 2000, he was promoted to referee matches in the

Swiss Super League The Super League (also known as the Credit Suisse Super League for sponsorship reasons) is a professional association football league in Switzerland and the highest level of the Swiss football league system. It has been played in its current fo ...

, and five years later he became a

FIFA The Fédération Internationale de Football Association (), more commonly known by its acronym FIFA ( ), is the international self-regulatory governing body of association football, beach soccer, and futsal. It was founded on 21 May 1904 to o ...

-listed international official. His first

UEFA The Union of European Football Associations (UEFA ; ; ) is one of six continental bodies of governance in association football. It governs football, futsal and beach soccer, beach football in Europe and the List of transcontinental countries#A ...

appointment was a third round match between Varteks and

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in the 2005 UEFA Intertoto Cup. The following year, he took charge of his first

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match in the tournament proper (following two qualifying matches), a first round match between

Red Star Belgrade Fudbalski klub Crvena zvezda ( sr-cyrl, Фудбалски клуб Црвена звезда, lit=Red Star Football Club), commonly referred to as Crvena zvezda () and colloquially referred to as Red Star Belgrade in anglophone media, is a ...

and Slovan Liberec. His first Champions League group stage appointment was a match between

Celtic Celtic, Celtics or Keltic may refer to: Language and ethnicity *pertaining to Celts, a collection of Indo-European peoples in Europe and Anatolia **Celts (modern) *Celtic languages **Proto-Celtic language *Celtic music *Celtic nations Sports Foot ...

and

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on 10 December 2008. His most prestigious appointment was as fourth official in the 2009 UEFA Champions League Final, alongside referee

Massimo Busacca Massimo Busacca (born 6 February 1969) is a Swiss former football referee, who is FIFA Director of Refereeing, overseeing the protection of football’s core values and the continuous improvement of the game through the development of match off ...

. He retired at the end of 2010 to take up the position of Swiss referees chief.

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* * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Circhetta, Claudio 1970 births Living people Swiss men's footballers Swiss football referees Men's association football players not categorized by position Sportspeople from Basel-Landschaft