Hackers post 'confession' on football ref's website

Swiss football referee Urs Meier who controversially disallowed an England goal at Euro 2004 has had his website defaced by hackers who posted a hoax message apologising and confessing that he took a bribe.

Meier received 16,000 hate emails and death threats through his personal website after ruling out England defender Sol Campbell's goal during the quarter-final match with hosts Portugal this summer and now he has had his website hacked, according to Swiss newspaper Blick.

The hacker posted a message in English purporting to be from Meier, which said: "I took money from a senior UEFA official so that the hosts, Portugal, would stay in the tournament."

The fake message also said he was retiring from international refereeing because of the incident and that he would reveal the name of the UEFA official to prevent it happening again.

Meier described the episode as "unbelievable" in an interview with Blick and said he thought things had finally returned to normal. Meier's web designer removed the false statements from the homepage as soon as they were discovered.