A record 13-match disqualification occurs in the Pordenone provincial Youth Under 15 championship. The protagonist is a baby footballer from Calcio Bannia. The territorial sports judge uses a heavy hand, at the end of a sort of investigation based on the collection of information and clarifications on the incident, given by the match director in the “supplementary” hearing on Monday 14 October, in the headquarters of the FIGC Delegation of Pordenone.
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THE BACKGROUND
We return to Sunday 6 October, the second first leg of the championship. The Corva – Calcio Bannia match ends with the locals winning 1-0. Then the sports judge had approved the result with reservations about the disciplinary measures against the young protagonist, who was therefore “suspended from all activities pending further investigations”.
RECONSTRUCTION
The 13-match ban, including 3 for attempted assault on the referee, contains a detailed reconstruction of what happened after the 90 minutes of play. «At the end of the match, inside the pitch – we read in the official press release issued by the Federation – the Calcio Bannia player approached the referee and subsequently addressed him with a racially discriminatory phrase, specified both in the scoresheet and in the minutes of the hearing”. Hence the notification of expulsion. «Following this decision – we further read – in the presence of various players from both teams, the under 15 player, again towards the match director, shouted a disrespectful phrase, repeating the same racially discriminatory phrase several times». Several players from both teams were present in the immediate vicinity and during the hearing the referee expressly stated “that he was very offended by the aforementioned sentences”.
It’s not enough. Bringing the calendar back to that pitch-black Sunday for the entire amateur planet, especially youth players, we read: «Subsequently, the player attempted to attack the referee, without succeeding, thanks to the intervention of the players of both teams and the manager of Calcio Bannia who accompanied him to the changing rooms”.
THE REACTIONS
The company chaired by Nicola De Bortoli, in the days immediately following the incident, officially apologized to the entire Federation and to the “Crescentino Fini” Referees Association of Maniago: section of origin of the “targeted” match director . Bruno Rucco, sporting director and right-hand man of the manager of the Biancoceleste academy Cristian Morson, is as lapidary as he is clear: «We know that the boy made a mistake and the disqualification imposed on him is the toll he will pay. We haven’t taken internal measures yet, but coming to train anyway without being able to play I think is a big boulder on the back. Especially since he realized what he had done, just a couple of minutes after returning to the locker room.” Christian Vaccher, former referee and new deputy vice president of the regional LND, as well as being a native of Bannia, has no doubts: «I won’t go into the merits of the sentence, but I know for a fact that the club promptly apologized. I know this reality well, which also deals with social issues, especially at a behavioral level. It is not an easy task for managers. If on the one hand we must protect the referees, on the other we cannot forever brand a kid who made a mistake. This, not only at the level of football, or sport in general, but also as a civil society. We must ensure that mistakes are always transformed into reasons for growth.”
