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

By: zach

zach — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 11:50:36 +0000

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.

By: Drabik

Drabik — Sun, 08 Mar 2009 11:46:28 +0000

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.

By: Revalesq

Revalesq — Sat, 07 Mar 2009 15:29:38 +0000

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!

By: alessio

alessio — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 23:16:26 +0000

Some videos worth a look-
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M6oCpAqWdZI
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t7mVTFxySMY

By: Johonna

Johonna — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 23:12:36 +0000

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

By: Johonna

Johonna — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 23:11:27 +0000

Whoops, “Rigor” means Penalty

By: Johonna

Johonna — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 23:10:54 +0000

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.php?pagina=notizia&idarticolo=279&categoria=2 (check the attached pdf for a description of the methods)
and
http://www.adiconsum.it/index.php?categoria=10&idarticolo=339&pagina=notizia

By: alessio

alessio — Fri, 06 Mar 2009 22:41:47 +0000

I’ve never heard of the group before, but it’s not terribly shocking. Any non-Interista will tell you that Inter have been getting preferential treatment from the referees for the last two years. As a Juventino, I don’t think it’s match-fixing, but is the large amount of favoritism a coincidence? I don’t know. One of the problems is that almost all of the current referees are very new and very young. I’m not terribly impressed by them.

Last year the Gazzetta dello Sport ran a similar story that said Inter had received about 15 points extra and Juve was penalized 13-14. (spot kicks against us were insane) I don’t think Milan, Roma, or Juve should be complaining, but Parma would have been saved from relegation (likely) had a poor pro-Inter decision not been awarded.

Italian society loves a good corruption story and given how recent Calciopoli was, a lot are crying foul, although the courts in Calciopoli never proved Juve had actually fixed a game. Then again, Moratti (Inter’s president) has a lot of connections to the FIGC (Italian FA) president as well as the league sponsor, TIM. Sketchy, but so it goes.