The former Var supervisor heard for hours by the prosecutor Ascione. On the table are interferences in two games with a discovery that can change the direction of the investigation: wiretaps exist.
An almost four-hour long discussion, the first of a series that will accompany prosecutor Ascione’s investigation into the world of arbitration in the coming weeks. Andrea Gervasoni, (former) supervisor of the VAR for Serie A, who is one of the recipients of the notices that shattered the serenity of Italian football on 25 April, showed up in Milan. Right-hand man of the (former) designator Gianluca Rocchi, Gervasoni spent a long time in the room of the Guardia di Finanza barracks where the magistrate summoned him.
He emerged calm, convinced that he had clarified his position, but also leaving behind some answers to the many questions that accompanied the discovery that the Milan Prosecutor’s Office had been investigating the arbitration system for months. What did Gervasoni’s interrogation before the prosecutor say Maurizio Ascione? We can try to put some fixed, rare points.
There are wiretaps in the Milan Prosecutor’s Office file
The first news does not directly concern Gervasoni or his position, but the entire structure of the investigation. There are telephone interceptions, the stone guest evoked by everyone to try to understand the scope of a dossier of which only a few details are still known. Up until now the Prosecutor’s Office had kept the documents hidden. Questioning Gervasoni, however, Ascione chose to show two that act as bookmarks for the rest of the story.
During the confrontation, the former Var supervisor was accused of an interception between two people (belonging to the world of refereeing) from which it appears that Gervasoni intervened to interfere with the awarding of a penalty kick in Salernitana-Modena of 8 March 2025: one of the now well-known “knocks” on the VAR room to change the decision made by VAR and aVar. Beyond the story linked to the single episode, the fact that the suspect was made to listen to a phone call and read its transcript means that the interception tool was used during the investigation. Where does this discovery lead?
Gervasoni and the audio of Inter-Roma: “Never intervened and never manipulated”
The other major issue was the one relating to the audio and video of the VAR room during the tense final minutes of Inter-Roma on 27 April 2025, the match that precluded Inter’s championship chances. Episode cited by one of the witnesses who have alternated in the Prosecutor’s Office in recent months (he reported a “suspicious” conversation between the two Varisti) but not included among those investigated. What happened to that audio? Was he manipulated?
Gervasoni strongly denied having intervened in any way on the decision of Di Bello and Piccinini, who did not correct Fabbri’s mistake on the pitch: “It was just a bad mistake by VAR. Manipulated audio? I exclude it one hundred percent.” And his lawyer, Michele Ducci: “We made it clear that there was no involvement on Gervasoni’s part. And the images make it clear. It all happens in 15 seconds, there wouldn’t even have been time to intervene. They asked us a quick question and nothing more.” Until proven otherwise, the Inter-Roma story is out of the investigation where perhaps it never really entered.
Gervasoni and the gift of ubiquity for Salernitana-Modena
Returning to the only charge against the former supervisor, the alleged interference in Salernitana-Modena, Gervasoni clarified that he was not physically present in the Serie B Var area which is located in an adjacent building – not the same – as the Serie A one. For this reason, the defense filed the plans of the Lega Calcio Serie A center in Lissone, aiming to have once and for all erased the doubts of the prosecutor Ascione who relied on the content of the interception in which two referees described what would have happened.
As previously implied, the closure of the investigation in which the investigators have collected dozens of testimonies over the months, many of which focus on the so-called “Rocchi system” and which also concern suspected appointments designed to favor Inter, does not seem close. On this point there was no discussion between Gervasoni and Ascione because the topic went outside the scope of the complaints made in sending the notice of guarantee.
