Gianluca Rocchi (CAN manager), took stock of the end of the season in a press conference from the Aula Magna in Coverciano
“We blew the whistle a little more, but I told the boys that they did very well because in the last few days there has been a drastic reduction in playing time. And even on penalties we didn’t have huge problems, if we exclude the Juventus-Bologna episode (penalty on Ndoye not called, ed.). In terms of actual time, we had a drop in the middle of the championship: when we played for more time, the days were refereed better on average. The championship average was 55 minutes and 13 seconds, we went up almost 4 minutes compared to pre-Qatar when we raised the problem. And think that at the beginning of the season I was very happy because we were on 57. The average of recoveries is just under 8 minutes. But I’ll give you an example: Cagliari-Fiorentina had 16 minutes of added time but only 47 of actual time. High recovery has nothing to do with high actual playing time. We are below the European threshold both for penalties and fouls, but also for yellow cards and expulsions. The VAR interventions were fewer than last year but we can do better, there were days with 9 interventions… It’s not a good message. My goal is to send guys onto the pitch who referee without using VAR or in any case more parsimoniously. As a media we have grown and this does not make me happy. It’s up to us to set the bar straight again. They have to decide on the pitch, the VAR parachute is not for the referees, but for the teams and the fans. The referee must think about not making mistakes, otherwise he is not a referee. We have repaired 92% of the errors, but I wonder how you managed to put up with so many errors… I’m thinking of Inter-Verona (foul by Bastoni on Henry in the move to score the winning goal for the Nerazzurri), for example: it’s an important episode for a missed VAR intervention but perhaps 15 years ago it would have been a single episode on the pitch, without the specific weight that there is today. We are not always happy with confirmations after reviews from the field, it would mean that the VAR was missing something in its decision-making process.”
