[2] Born in Oslo, Øvrebø refereed over two hundred games in the Norwegian top division since his debut made on 20 September 1992.

On 6 May 2009, Øvrebø officiated in the UEFA Champions League's semi-final second leg between Chelsea and Barcelona.

[4] At the end of the game, he was verbally abused by several Chelsea players, including Didier Drogba, José Bosingwa and Michael Ballack, after turning down several penalty appeals by the home team during the match.

[5][6] Drogba had to be physically restrained at the end of the match[5] and the Norwegian referee was later escorted out of England by police on account of fears for his safety.

[8] In 2018, he admitted to Marca that he made "a series of mistakes" and that he was "not proud" of that performance, which the newspaper presented as "infamous."

He considered as its "key moment" the free-kick given by Øvrebø in the first half, instead of a penalty, when Daniel Alves fouled Florent Malouda inside the Barcelona box.

"[11] Øvrebø had previously come under "strong" criticism when, in February 2010, he'd allowed a goal scored by Miroslav Klose from a "clearly"[12] off-side position in the final minutes of the game Bayern Munich vs Fiorentina, in the 2009–10 UEFA Champions League, during the round-of-16.

After the game, Latvian manager Aleksandrs Starkovs stated that "there was clearly no foul" and that he "didn't understand why Øvrebø awarded a penalty.