Years League Name Antonio Sbardella 1964–1971 FIFA listed | Years League –1971 Serie A Role Referee | |
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Born 17 October 1925
Palestrina, Kingdom of Italy ( 1925-10-17 ) Died January 14, 2002, Rome, Italy | ||
Intervista ad antonio sbardella detto poppy avi
Antonio Sbardella (17 October 1925 – 14 January 2002) was an Italian football player, referee and sports official. He is best known for refereeing at the 1970 FIFA World Cup.
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Career
Born in Palestrina near Rome, Sbardella first got involved in football playing as a goalkeeper at youth levels of the local powerhouse Lazio. However Sbardella never appeared in the Serie A as he failed to rise through the ranks at Lazio, and he eventually finished his playing career at Artiglio, a small Rome-based Serie C club.
He then took up refereeing, and in his domestic career he officiated a total of 167 Serie A matches. Along with Concetto Lo Bello he was considered one of the top two Italian referees of the 1960s and 1970s.
The pinnacle of his career came at the 1970 FIFA World Cup in Mexico, in which he refereed two matches, including the third place play-off between West Germany and Uruguay. Sbardella had been designated to referee the final, but was eventually replaced by East Germany's Rudi Glöckner because Italy national football team had reached the final.
In club football his highlights include officiating two Coppa Italia finals (the 1963 final between Atalanta and Torino and the 1966 final between Catanzaro and Fiorentina), and the second leg of the 1967 Inter-Cities Fairs Cup final between Leeds United and Dinamo Zagreb.
After retiring from refereeing, Sbardello became a sports official and was sports director at Lazio, Roma and Triestina football clubs in the 1970s and 1980s.