Former Italian football federation (FIGC) general manager Antonello Valentini has dismissed former federal prosecutor Giuseppe Pecoraro’s claims that audio of an infamous incident during Inter’s 3-2 loss to Juventus back in 2018 was missing.
During the match referee Daniele Orsato failed to act upon a clear foul on Inter midfielder Rafinha by Juventus’ Miralem Pjanic.
Pjanic was already booked and despite smashing Rafinha with his arm he somehow avoided a second booking and remained on the field.
In a recent interview Pecoraro claimed that audio of the incident between Orsato and those in charge of VAR that night was missing and that was the only incident in all of that season that had no audio alongside it.
“As we all remember, it was a sensational error of judgement, that he paid dearly for by refereeing only second tier matches afterwards, Orsato decided to not pull out a second yellow card and then pull out a red card to Pjanic after he fouled Rafinha,” Valentini wrote in a column which appeared in today’s print edition of Rome based newspaper Corriere dello Sport.
He then proceeded to recall what he was told by referee designator Nicola Rizzoli when it came to why there was no audio of the incident.
“Nicola Rizzoli told me that the audio does not exist because VAR did not intervene and could not due to it not being one of the four things they can intervene in.
“Audio communications concerning VAR are only kept for educational purposes and are also sent on to FIFA and made available to IFAB, the body that set the rules of football.”
He concluded with: “The AIA (Italian referees association) management were summoned by the Federal Prosecutor regarding the Orsato case and they explained to him why the audio did not exist. There is no mysterious disappearance as Pecoraro tried to insinuate.”
