One of the most discussed episodes of the last championship, starring Inter and Roma, cited by one of the witnesses heard by the Milan Prosecutor’s Office and in the complaint by former assistant Rocca. Here is the reconstruction of those excited days.
“Mind your own business” hissed to his colleague in the VAR room to avoid intervening to send the referee to review the action of a possible penalty kick in favor of Inter. The reason? “On the recommendation of supervisor Gervasoni”. The revelation contained in an article by The Republic reopens the case of the audio that first disappeared and then was published relating to the foul by N’Dicka on Bisseck not sanctioned in the final stages of Inter-Roma last season. A very delicate episode which the championship standings would have made decisive, as Napoli had won the scudetto by just one point. An episode also mentioned by the president of Inter, Beppe Marotta, in the declaration of the Nerazzurri club’s involvement in the Milan prosecutor’s investigation into Gianluca Rocchi and the refereeing system: “It is clear that last year we objectively had, and this is not to complain, adverse decisions, I would say even ascertained subsequently by the refereeing leaders, such as the penalty not given in Inter-Roma”.
According to the reconstruction, among the approximately thirty referees who in recent months have been heard in various forms by the public prosecutor Maurizio Ascione there would have been a “source” who would have recorded direct interference by the VAR supervisor, Andrea Gervasoni, on the occasion of the Inter-Roma match at San Siro on 27 April 2025, interference to damage the Nerazzurri. A paradox if we consider that in the same days, according to what was contained in the guarantee notice addressed to Rocchi, the then designer had done his utmost to give Inter welcome (or not unwelcome) designations in the decisive matches of a season still in the balance.
Being Gervasoni called to appear solely for the interference in the VAR room for Salernitana-Modena on 8 March 2025, a Serie B match, evidently prosecutor Ascione did not consider the report relating to Inter-Roma to be proven or interesting. The episode was also included in the complaint of Domenico Rocca, a former assistant referee who resigned in 2025 and whose outburst was collected and included in the investigation documents. But the story remains to be developed starting from the circumstances that already accompanied the controversy in those weeks over the failure to publish video and audio within the Open Var broadcast on DAZN.
Meanwhile, the dates put in relation to the rest of the investigation. On 2 April 2025 the alleged “meeting” at San Siro to talk about Colombo (Bologna-Inter on 20 April) and Doveri (then sent to both Parma-Inter on 3 April and Inter-Milan in the Italian Cup on 23 April) and in the same days the refereeing error against Roma. Only the disclosure of the sources of evidence in the hands of the Milan Prosecutor’s Office, which has made it known that there are no Inter managers involved in the investigation (at least not at the moment), will help to understand what the idea of the prosecutor Ascione is who contests Rocchi’s hypothesis of the crime of sports fraud “in competition with other people”.
Returning, however, to the video of what happened in the Var room, the designator Rocchi admitted as early as May 2025 that he had made a mistake in blocking its immediate publication, hoping (mistakenly) to protect the referees’ group from controversy at the end of the championship. Audio and images were then shown on Open Var in the closing episode of the championship and on that occasion Rocchi had admitted without too many problems that the decision of the referee (Fabbri) and those in Lissone (Di Bello and Piccinini) had been wrong and that a clear penalty had been lost in favor of Inter.
In that audio you cannot hear the words “mind your own business” reported to prosecutor Ascione. Why? It’s another of the mysteries of this story. The certainty, as far as we know, is that nothing was ‘cut’ in the audio sent to DAZN for publication at the end of the championship with commentary in the studio by Rocchi. No manipulative intervention on the part of the broadcaster. Had it happened before, during the packaging phase of the clip then sent to DAZN? Or was the sentence which was the subject of the testimony in the Prosecutor’s Office pronounced after the point at which the clip sent by the AIA to DAZN and transmitted to Open Var ended? It will be the subject of the investigation, assuming that the prosecutor Ascione has not already formed an idea since in the notice of investigation sent to Gervasoni on 25 April the alleged interference in Inter-Roma is neither mentioned nor contested.
