Referee Luca Pairetto has come in for criticism for his role in the VAR confusion during the second half of Inter’s Serie A win over Lazio yesterday evening.
The official received a poor assessment for his performance in today’s print edition of Rome-based newspaper Corriere dello Sport, who highlight his decision to give Lazio players Stefan Radu and Mattia Zaccagni a yellow each after he looked set to send Radu off.
Towards the end of the second half, there was a sequence where Zaccagni fouled Inter midfielder Niccolo Barella and then Radu committed bad fouls against both Lautaro Martinez and Denzel Dumfries, all in quick succession.
Pairetto’s initial reaction was to reach for a red card to send Radu off for the two bad tackles, but then he consulted with VAR official Gianluca Aureliano.
After taking advice from Aureliano, Pairetto instead decided not to give Radu a straight red card but instead let the Romanian off with just a booking, while he did brandish a yellow card for Zaccagni.
The incident caused some confusion, and the Corriere consider it to have been a major error on the part of Pairetto and the VAR.
