Football team meets referee halfway (12)
I believe the answer is:
intermediate
'halfway' is the definition.
(similar in meaning)
'football team meets referee' is the wordplay.
'football team' becomes 'inter' (short for Inter Milan, Italian football team).
'meets' means one lot of letters go next to another.
'referee' becomes 'mediate' (referee can mean to mediate or moderate).
'inter'+'mediate'='INTERMEDIATE'
(Other definitions for intermediate that I've seen before include "Act as agent" , "Lying between two extremes" , "Coming between (eg, in size)" , "Coming between two things in some way" .)