We stayed in the Hague retreat in Cascia, where the designator Rocchi is preparing with his referees next season. Here are the regulatory innovations, the staff and what will happen different from the past
The retreat is in the middle of the mountains of Umbria, in Cascia. Third year in cloister to prepare an arbitration season that will be difficult. None of the leaders of the Hague awaits anything different. Moreover, the Italian whistles come out of a championship that from the referee point of view represented the perfect storm, with the championship and access to the rich European cups under discussion until the last day. Hypra vintage and full of protests, but also positive (beyond the errors) for the answers it provided with some evident growth talents.
It is no longer the year zero. The generational change has been there and now it must be accelerated. The first step was painful, in the sense that in June many referees was asked to stop thus that they can reduce the staff. At the starting tapes of the season there are 42 field race directors and 24 Video Match Officials, the VAR professionals who deal only with what happens in Lissone’s studies. A necessary sacrifice: “Having reduced numbers the quality will raise and we will also be able to leave more to young referees who have been left a little on the sidelines. The goal is to rejuvenate the staff and bring some referees to be international as UEFA and FIFA ask us” he explains Gianluca Rocchiin the fifth year as a designator of the A and B.
Referees, the novelties of the Serie A season
Deep regulatory revolutions are not there, after years of great changes. Last March the IFAB decided to make only a few tweaks to the rules, so nothing too different will be expected from what has been seen in recent months. The changes, however, will be extremely visible and will touch the communication relationship with the general public; Precisely for this reason they will be handled with great attention.
Receipt recognized as a public official
The first is political and it is the victory in the battle that the arbitration world had been carrying out for some time: recognition of the role of public official for the referees So as to put an embankment to the phenomenon unfortunately always present. Now that there is a rule, which punishes the managers of the acts of violence against the race directors in a very hard way, the cultural revolution is needed.
The President of the Hague, Antonio Zappi: “Let’s never forget that the races in Italy are 600 thousand every year and that the episodes are a limited number. However, even if it may seem few do not have to minimize: even a single referee beaten is a problem. We need everyone because the law is not a punitive tool but an opportunity for deterrence. We will not be happy if someone will be arrested if he has beaten a referee, we will be spread if the message will be spread Well don’t put your hands on a referee ”.
The referees will announce the VAR decisions to the public
With the beginning of the championship, the public announcement of the decisions of the Var will also arrive. What will happen? That after the review the referee will open an audio connection with the stadium and the live broadcast and explain the reason for his choice. The experimentation was at the Club World Cup in the United States and it was a success, now it’s up to the championship with all its poisons.
As Rocchiwho is teaching the new protocol: “We will try to conform the way, as done for the talks between VAR and referees. Everyone will have his own way but he will try to have univocal formulas. It is a qualitative leap because it will not be easy to know that he had to know how to convince the public live and at the moment that the decision taken was corrected”.
8 -second limit for the resumption of the game
Another novelty, already tested at the Club World Cup, the maximum limit of 8 seconds for the resumption of the game when the ball is in the hands of the goalkeeper. Otherwise, corner kick in favor of the team that attacks. It is used to make the game more fluid, decrease the interruptions and waste of time, raise the average of the actual game and align Italian statistics to the European ones as already done in recent seasons also in terms of whistled fouls and penalty kicks.
Referees and communication: “We have opened but we want to respect”
Not only Open Var. By now the house of the referees is a glass house in which little remains hidden. Continuous communication, admission and explanation of errors, assumption of responsibility that involves first of all the top management. An irreversible process even if the results were not expected: “I am sincere, I expected more as far as we have opened outside -admits Rocchi -. We tell everything about us, there are no secrets. There is no category like ours in admitting the errors and putting them in the square and then I will not receive a thank you but other attacks.
When are the interviews in the after game? “On a personal level I am against -replies the designator -. You are not shiny. After the final whistle, the less we talk about the referee the better and let alone if a hot referee can admit a mistake. I make a provocation: give a prize once to a referee as the best on the field and we will get to the interviews … we don’t risk anything”.
And to close the (painful) button of the protests, especially of the technicians and staff: “We have not seen great improvements in the last season, perhaps because of us -explains Rocchi -. I have always been convinced that the main road is that of dialogue, but if we speak and the others protest there is no dialogue. We had asked for it and we had in response screams and protests, we must also think about protecting the image of Italian football. New FVS, not yet and in the future we will see “.
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