What Would Serie A Look Like if Adjusted for Refereeing Errors?

By: Daryl | March 6th, 2009

I don’t follow Italian football quite closely enough to have a definite opinion of its men in the middle. But I do know that a whole lot of Calcio followers have a whole lot to say about the standard of refereeing in Serie A.

So they’ll be very interested to hear that the “Observatory of Refereeing Errors” has put together its own Serie A table, where all points gained or lost through refereeing errors have been corrected.

And there have apparently been 163 of these errors already this season, so the Observatory’s table looks quite a lot different to the official one.

You can see full details of the adjusted Serie A table over at Italy Offside, including a before and after comparison.

The big news is that Inter drop from 1st to 4th, having gained 11 points through mistakes with the whistle. Juventus lose 3 points and drop to third (which is at least a better result for Juve than when we did this for real in 2006, eh?). Milan and Fiorentina both gain five points each, putting them first and second respectively.

The original article is here in Italian, with a translated English version here. You’ll notice from the English version that Chievo translates as Charlton. Which would explain why they’re bottom of Serie A.

Hard to know exactly what to make of this adjusted table.

Inter’s point difference is by far the biggest at -11. Does that imply Inter are getting preferential treatment? Or is it just a case of big teams always getting the marginal decisions?

More importantly, who is this Observatory of Refereeing Errors anyway? They sound very official, but could just as easily be a group of Milan fans sitting around in their PJs with an axe to grind.

And even if they are neutral souls, then how do we know they’re decisions are correct? A lot of refereeing calls are a matter of opinion, so seems odd that the Observatory is able to pinpoint 163 definite errors.

But here’s the big question: Do experiments like this help to shed light on the standard of refereeing in Serie A? Or do they just destabilize the legitimacy of a league that’s (to some extent) still rebuilding public trust in the wake of Calciopoli?

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Category: Serie A

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zach

italian football is a disgrace and the quality is poor.

four english sides through to the CL quarter finals while there is 0 italian sides through.. enough said.
Drabik

I'm sure Australia fans will disagree with the against Italian team bias ... (WC06)

I don't watch Italian domestic football, so I can't really judge any supposed bias, but this kind of report is probably going to promote anti-inter thoughts to neutrals. It really has nothing to do with Inter - if they are getting preferential treatment, then the referees should be sacked or demoted to a lower league.

I still think that the top european leagues should share their referees anyway. This will reduce any supposed bias. The language barrier shouldnt really be a problem, most of these referees have to deal with foriegn languages on a weekly basis in the domestic leagues anyway (see % of EPL that are english), and many are involved in CL and UEFA games.
Revalesq

Are you joking? As a massive Fiorentina fan I can tell you how angry this season has made me. For example- in the theft for Lecce- there were MINUTES of extra time the ref just ate up at the end of the match when we trailed and NEVER replaced them. In such an atmosphere Juve is not surprising. Also- in international play- perhaps this is why the officiating is so often biased against the Italian team (eg. 2002 World Cup). (Offside to the Offside- this is not the only sport- yesterday- NBA- Celtics-Cavs- some of the worst bias against one team I have ever seen- this same bias made the Lakers beat Celtics earlier this season...). Bad refs- Give 'em the BOOT!
Johonna

and the smiley face is supposed to be and eight with a parenthesis
Johonna

Whoops, "Rigor" means Penalty
Johonna

Ok, here is the deal with this “Observatory of Refereeing Errors.” It is the brain child of a marking group called Make Tailored Advertising. What they do is go through La Gazzetta dello Sport, Il Corriere dello Sport, and Tuttosport (Italian sports newspapers) and read the "Moviola" or the published referring errors as decided by pundits at the respective papers. The are looking for cases that deal with goals:

"8 CASES TO BE SUBMITTED TO moviola ANALYSIS (CASES ONLY ESSENTIAL TO GOAL - GOAL NOT)
• 3) GRANTED GOAL / 4) GOAL ANNULLED
• 1) BALL IN / 2) BALL OUT
• 5) RIGOR / 6) NOT RIGOR
• 7) DETERMINING Offside / 8) NOT Offside"

If the incident was in two of the three papers above, then it was counted. In the reports from past years, this was done to calculate the percentage of referring errors in the Serie A, specifically to make a case for video replay.

As for the "corrected" standings, there is no mention of how this was calculated. At all.

If any are interested, here are a couple reports from previous years:
http://www.adiconsum.it/index.... (check the attached pdf for a description of the methods)
and
http://www.adiconsum.it/index....