Media Release Date: 19/04/2004 Communiqué aux médias No. 056 Medien-Mitteilung

Referee appointed for semi-final in Monaco

The UEFA Referees Committee today announced that Swiss referee will officiate at the first leg of the 2003/04 UEFA Champions League semi-final between AS Monaco FC and Chelsea FC to be played at the Stade Louis II in Monaco on Tuesday 20 April, kicking- off at 20.45 CET.

His assistant referees will be Francesco Buragina and Rudolf Käppeli, while the 4th Official will be Markus Nobs. All four members of the team are from Switzerland.

Urs Meier, 45, has been a referee for 27 years and won his FIFA badge ten years ago. He was the referee at the 2002 UEFA Champions League final between Bayer 04 Leverkusen and Real Madrid CF and, a month or so later, handled two matches at the FIFA World Cup in Japan /Korea.

This will be Urs Meier’s third match involving AS Monaco FC. The first was a 3-0 UEFA Champions League defeat against Sporting Clube de in on 17 September 1997 and the second was, curiously, the last time the club from the Principality reached the semi-finals of the UEFA Champions League. On 15 April 1998, he was the referee when they recorded a pyrrhic 3-2 victory over Juventus.

His only previous encounter with Chelsea FC was on 11 August 1999 when they defeated FC Skonto 3-0 in a UEFA Champions League qualifier.

Urs Meier was the referee two weeks ago, when RC Deportivo La Coruña defeated the defending champions, AC Milan, 4-0 at home in the return leg of their quarter-final. Curiously, he had also been the referee when Deportivo came back from a 0-3 deficit to record a 4-3 home win over Paris Saint-Germain FC in the 2000/01 UEFA Champions League campaign.

He is one of the twelve referees selected for UEFA EURO 2004™ in Portugal.

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