For your Saturday morning reading: Channel4 reports that the new President of the Referees’ Assocation in Italy wants to stop officials from participating in conversations on social networking sites and message boards, and refrain themselves from blogging. The President in question, Marcello Nicchi, was only elected to the position last month and one of his first moves was the release of a list of “rules for privacy and institutional communication protocols.”
In Italy, it’s generally forbidden for football (that would be soccer) referees to make any public statements in the media even after a game has finished. The memo presumably simply wants to make it clear to the officials what the Association understands ‘media’ to encompass, so it included a detailed list of what they should be avoiding. Literally, the message translates as: “referees are barred from making statements in public including via email, their own websites, mailing lists, forums, blogs or discussion groups such as Facebook and similar systems.” Officials who break the rules will be deferred to the Disciplinary Commission.
Strangely, this contradicts earlier reports that Nicchi was actually thinking of ‘revolutionizing’ Italian football by scrapping the rule that prevents officials from being interviewed by the media about finished games. We intend to get to the bottom of this, of course, because the public needs to know what is really going on here!
Meanwhile, anyone else is still free to bash the referees on social networks, forums and blogs, so no harm done really.
(Via Mazi on Twitter)
Lolz..Banned? Will they be able to do this..?
http://www.smartbloggerz.com
It is very routine in Italy because of dozens referee & football scandal. Check over:
http://en.wikip...Serie_A_scandal
Given the abuses in past Italian refereeing, they need a cleaning out of the house to avoid possible chumminess that extends beyond the game. Influence peddling is rampant, and unfortunately after the 2006 Calciopoli debacle, nothing really changed.
I’m happy at least to see someone attempting to break up some conflicts of interest that naturally arise. Otherwise, absolutely nothing has changed.
Silencio!
Silencio 2.0!
The report seems to be correct. Italian blogger Silvio de Rossi has posted the original directive here:
http://www.slid...e-aia?src=embed
lol
Italian Soccer is used to Scandals, so this is a good move.
The truth is that in Italy, unlike in other countries where football is so popular, the media tend to emphasize way too much the mistakes made by the refs rather than focusing on the match itself. It’s always been like this, even before those scandals.
As Robin said the Referees’ Association is just trying to limit the public exposure of its associates and, above all, to avoid the “unofficial” disclosures. Football refs will unlikely admit they made a mistake (I can remember 3-4 times this happened) but if they decide to confess they’ll probably use non-traditional media. Nicchi is very afraid this could happen…..
Robin: This is ofcourse not the first such instance and we have compiled at least 3 more in the past few months – referred in this post based on your report (http://www.coll....com/blog/?p=78)
Organizations can decide how open or closed they want to be. Not everybody has to do the same thing. In fact, when we all do the same thing – how are we different.
How can you ban someone from all social networks?
Crazy stuff!
Seems like nothing’s happening today. Another non-story…
A similar debate raged with Scottish football, when the league permitted a referee’s blogsite ‘Whistle Blower.’ Its main purpose to allow referees to explain controversial decisions. It was assumed that this would be healthy for democracy in the game. Problem was that the site only helped fan the flames of controversy and issues that would have died away in two days continued for months. Probably why the Italian authorties are so reluctant.
The news is correct, and it is reported on the official site of the AIA (referee association).
They won’t ban the referee from the social network, but they will presumibly punish him someway.
Anyway it’s not correct to say that Nicchi wanted to revolutionize those rules but he just wanted to make theme more flexible in some particular situations.
Paolo from Italy
myTechnology
Someone should check NFL officials and their Facebook pages – and btw Go AC Milan!!!
I don’t know how well this will work out. If these refs feel they need to use a social media site they could find a way around this.