Italy made the eye-opening decision to bring a current referee onto live TV to be interviewed this weekend, and he has given his thoughts on a number of decisions.
Daniele Orsato has admitted that he made errors in previous seasons, including when failing to give Miralem Pjanic a straight red card for Juventus against Inter Milan back in 2018, but he refuses to dwell on the past.
He told Rai2 (via TuttoSport): “You don’t need to go and see him again after three years, it’s certainly a mistake. The proximity of the action did not let me see what the TV showed: for me it was a physical contrast on the fly, the VAR could not intervene.”
The official was then asked what happened between himself and Ronaldo after he recently denied him a last-minute penalty in Juve’s Champions League match against Porto, with the belief that the Portuguese could have been taken as rude, but he downplayed those comments, saying: “He asked me how the clock worked, there was nothing strange, it all ended there.”
It will be interesting if officials are allowed to discuss their decisions with the press moving forwards, or if other countries could potentially follow suit, with today’s conversation seeming to have gone down well with onlookers.
Was this a positive move by the powers that be to bring transparency?
Patrick
