Yes, the Ref was from Campobasso

By: Neil | January 13th, 2009

By the end of Sunday’s Napoli Catania game I was so sick of hearing the commentator point out that the referee was from Campobasso it made me realize there are certain things about calcio that I didn’t miss over the winter break.
I believe there is a rule that the referee cannot come from a city in either province of the two teams. Fine, but there are no rules about neighbouring provinces. So the referee for Sunday, Signor Celi, was legit because he wasn’t from Campania or Sicilia. Therefore there should be nothing suspicious, right? Not in the calcio world.

If you check a map of southern Italy, the cities of Napoli and Campobasso aren’t exactly close, but they’re not really all that far apart either. And while the province of Molise is historically aligned with Abruzzo and not Campania, the commentator thought it was necessary to point out where the referee lived after just about every call that went Napoli’s way. As if he would naturally favour a team from Campania rather than one from Sicilia.

On the whole I thought Celi did a good job, but he made a huge mistake when he called for halftime just as Catania was in the middle of a good attack in the Napoli half. There’s no question that Catania was in a promising attacking position, and either Celi forgot the rule or he didn’t read the game before deciding to blow the halftime whistle.

The in the second half Napoli started to win most of the fouls, and after the game Catania manager Walter Zenga noticed his team didn’t win a foul for a twenty minute period. This can be explained by the fact that Napoli did a good job of defending all game long, and if you look at the final foul count it was 8 against Napoli and 14 against Catania. When you consider the advantages that Napoli had in terms of skill and possession, those numbers are pretty normal, especially with Napoli at home. As for the part about the electronic boards not working when Catania wanted to make a sub, I can’t really explain that.

The point is that the ref had a pretty normal game except for the one botched call when he whistled for halftime. But listening to the live commentary I was constantly reminded that the ref was from Campobasso, especially after decisions were made in favour of Napoli. By the end of the game I got so sick of it I wanted to stop watching. It’s one thing to say that the ref had a terrible game, but there’s no need to suggest there was some kind of conspiracy because he comes from a neighbouring province. Why is Italian society, and by extension the world of calcio, so full of paranoia, OCD, and other neuroses? I do realize that both society and calcio are sometimes plagued by corruption, but it looks bad if all people talk about are possible conspiracies. Italy’s Euro 2004 campaign was a perfect example. So a game between Sweden and Denmark ended 2-2… clearly the two countries must have rigged the game beforehand in order to advance. I watched that game and it looked like both countries were trying to win and guarantee their own passage to the next round. It was the same situation as the Milan-Roma game on Sunday: both teams went for the win, and the result was a scoring draw.

Now that my rant is over I’d like to point out that after Napoli lost to Milan 1-0, I was very critical of the ref and how he approached the game. But beyond suggesting that Europe’s bigger teams like Milan and Man United tend to be on the receiving end of controversial calls, I didn’t get in to where the ref was from and why he might favour one team rather than another. There is still lots of professionalism in calcio, but all too often experts and fans seem to focus on possible conspiracies and friends helping friends.

These kinds of attitudes drive away fans and hurt the game economically. I’m a big enough fan that I’ll keep coming back, but there are times when I’ve had enough, even after a three week break.