Refereeing scandal brings back unhappy memories of Calciopoli to Italian football | Nicky Bandini

Interviewed by Sky Sport before his team’s game away to Torino, Inter’s president Giuseppe Marotta said Saturday’s news stories were the first the club had heard of it. “The statements made have amazed us,” he said. “We don’t have a list of referees we like and don’t like, for starters. We know we have acted with absolute correctness, and this fact should help everyone to stay calm.”

Rocchi’s lawyer, Antonio D’Avirro, said it was impossible to even respond properly at this stage to the accusations made against his client. “It’s hard to understand these allegations, because they imply the complicity of several people but none of [the other] people are named … Rocchi was going to every stadium. The prosecutor needs to say who these people were.”

There are other threads to these investigations that do not involve Inter. Another claim by the prosecutor against Rocchi is that he intervened inappropriately in a VAR decision during Udinese’s win over Parma last March. Fabio Maresca, the match referee, had waved play on after Florian Thauvin’s shot hit the arm of a falling Botond Balogh inside the penalty box. Daniele Paterna, the VAR official, reviewed the action and initially told Maresca that he thought the defender’s arm was in a natural position, not extending his frame.

But footage from their booth at Serie A’s International Broadcast Centre shows Paterna suddenly turn towards someone off-screen and appear to mouth the words “it’s a penalty?” After reassessing the position of the player’s arm, Maresca is instructed to conduct an on-pitch review, which ultimately results in an Udinese penalty. Thauvin converts, and his team wins 1-0.

Rocchi is accused of having tapped on the window of the booth to get Paterna’s attention. Gervasoni is alleged to have similarly inserted himself into the decision-making process for a penalty awarded during Salernitana’s Serie B game against Modena that same month.

D’Avirro reiterated on Monday that Rocchi believes he is “the victim of an injustice” and that “these allegations are unfounded”. Gervasoni’s lawyer, Michele Ducci, described his client as “very calm”, questioning why “he is being accused of having intervened in a Serie B match, when he was supervisor for Serie A”. Ducci was reported as saying later on Monday that Gervasoni “should reply” to the prosecutor’s questions at a meeting on Thursday.

On comparisons to Calciopoli, D’Avirro was dismissive, saying: “We are talking about two or three people here, whereas back then it was hundreds of people and tens of clubs.” Others were more circumspect. At a meeting of Italian Football Federation’s board on Monday, Giancarlo Abete, head of the body that organises non-league football in Italy, reminded reporters that “We are at an early stage. It would be a mistake to give judgments on situations we don’t know.”

This story arrives at an especially messy moment for Italian football, with the national federation yet to elect a replacement for president Gabriele Gravina, who resigned after the World Cup qualifying failure. Abete is among the anticipated candidates for the role. The Italian Referees’ Association’s president, Antonio Zappi, meanwhile, is currently appealing against an unrelated 13-month suspension of his own.

Where does this leave the designation of match officials for the season’s remaining weeks? Perhaps it is a blessing that there is little tension left in this season’s Serie A title race. Inter’s hopes of sealing the Scudetto on Sunday were dashed by Napoli’s 4-0 win over Cremonese on Friday, and in the end Christian Chivu’s team could not beat Torino in any case, blowing a 2-0 lead with 20 minutes remaining.

If any title rivals were still in touching distance, a collapse like this would be enough to kick off a full week’s discussion about bottle-jobs and jangling nerves. Instead, with a 10-point cushion and four games left to play, it is extremely likely that they will simply get to celebrate becoming champions at home to Parma this coming Sunday instead.

Still, we ought to take this opportunity to mention the excellent form of Torino’s Giovanni Simeone, who started the comeback for Torino with a well-taken flick past Yann Sommer and has scored five goals in his last eight games. The equaliser arrived from a penalty, scored by Nikola Vlasic, and awarded after a VAR review.

Giovanni Simeone celebrates after scoring against Inter. Photograph: Alessandro Di Marco/EPA

Carlos Augusto had his arm raised when Duván Zapata headed the ball against it, though it was hard to see what else he could have done at such close range. “I’m not going to talk about referees,” said Chivu. “I haven’t done it all year.”

The rest of Italian football may not be so lucky. With investigations only just beginning, this latest refereeing scandal may dominate the agenda for some time yet.