The head of referees, Gianluca Rocchi, discussed the episode that sparked a lot of controversy after Juventus-Bologna last week.
Gianluca Rocchi, AIA designator, spoke to Sky Sport about the incident in Juventus-Bologna and the denied penalty to the Bolognese team: “I understand Thiago Motta, I would have been angry myself with what happened. I am a football man and I understand it very well. I ask the coaches to stay calm and not to attack the referees because they create tension upon tension: referees are as stressed at the end of the match as the players. I understand the bitterness, but we must try to be calm, maybe bite our tongue and talk about the incidents after 12 hours. We referees have always shown that when we make a mistake, we admit it. We would also like to have more respect.”
Yesterday, the referee designator highlighted his decision regarding the referee of Juventus-Bologna: “I’m not suspending Di Bello because I suspend referees for disciplinary reasons. He will be out for one or two rounds and then follow the path he needs to take. It’s not true that we penalize the referee when he goes to VAR. It’s the opposite. We penalize him if he makes a mistake, but if he goes to VAR and corrects something that couldn’t be seen, we reward him, we don’t penalize him.” The former referee concluded on the brindisino referee.