Giuseppe Pecoraro, the head of the FIGC prosecutor’s office from August 2016 to December 2019, discussed the infamous Derby d’Italia between Inter and Juventus in April of 2018, where the referee Daniele Orsato was heavily criticised for his decisions, in an interview in today’s paper edition of the Naples based newspaper Il Mattino.
“It was Orsato’s management of Inter-Juventus that showed me the tensions with the refereeing world, and I had complaints signed, from associations, fans and organisations about his work and to avoid making mistakes, I asked my deputies whether or not I should open proceedings.”
Pecoraro then revealed a controversial fact, that there was no audio recording between Orsato and the VAR room about giving Juventus midfielder Miralem Pjanic a second yellow card.
“I don’t think we would have found evidence of bad faith and I asked the Italian Referee’s Association AIA first and then the Lega Calcio, only to understand better what was going on, for the audio-video dialogue between VAR room and the referee of that match.
“They only gave us the audio to us at the beginning of the following season. We opened the file and the only episode in which there is no audio recorded was the only one we cared about, the one between Orsato and VAR that had led to Orsato’s decision not to send off Pjanic. When I asked why they told me it just wasn’t there and that’s it.”
The infamous Derby d’Italia between Inter and Juventus took place in April 2018, a vital game in the Bianconeri’s fight for the league title. The win put the Turin based club four points ahead of second place Napoli, who would go on to lose at Fiorentina the next day.
Many suggested that Orsato’s decisions favored Juventus, starting with the harsh red card given to Matias Vecino, followed by the failure to send off Pjanic for an obviously bookable offence.
