The Italian Job

Watching the Australia - Italy match last night, I was reminded of a banner that Italian fans reportedly brought to Germany, that said: 'Don't worry - Moggi says we'll win the World Cup'.

'Moggi' refers to Luciano Moggi, the ex-general manager of Juventus football club, Italian Serie A champions for the last two seasons. Signore Moggi has been charged with allegedly influencing the selection of match officials and the officials themselves, among other things, in order to achieve favourable results for his club. The scandal and its revelations may go some way in explaining the dodgy refereeing decisions that seem to pervade Serie A, such as doubtful last-minute penalties.

Like last night's.

On the whole, I think the Italians deserved to win. They'd managed to hold the ponderous Australians off fairly comfortably, even with 10 men. And they showed some real attacking flair with their occasional raids. It's just a pity that the victory came courtesy of yet another unconvincing refereeing decision.

Over the last few matches, the referees' performances have led to increased clamouring for the use of technology to aid match officials. It's an issue that crops up every major tournament, or every time there's a footballing controversy. So far, FIFA has steadfastly refused to incorporate video to aid referee's judgments. Reasons commonly given are that it would rob the game of momentum, and (my favourite), the current situation promotes more 'discussion'. That's the FIFA president's word. No kidding.

As paragons of woolly logic, the statements are unsurpassed. It's hard to sustain momentum with half the players crowding around the referee protesting a silly call, and it's also hard to get any momentum going in the first place when players are diving and deliberately disrupting the flow of the game because they know there's a fair chance of getting away with it. And if we took Mr Sepp Blatter's word, we should perhaps ban photo-finishes and video technology at the Olympics too; how much more fun to watch the athletes slug it out after the finishing line, non?

It's highly irresponsible for an organisation in charge of the world's biggest sport not to improve the game when it has the power to do so. With the huge amounts of money involved in the game these days, it's imperative that the rules are efficiently policed. A mistake could potentially cost millions, in prize money, television revenue, sponsorship deals, ticket revenues, transfer fees and so on. In some other fields, I believe it's called criminal negligence.

In addition, the current situation gives rise to tremendous temptation to influence match officials. After all, if the referee's decision is sacrosanct during the match, and there isn't much in the way of a court of appeal, then the smart move would be to bend the referee to your will, by diving, intimidation, cajoling or other means. When there's literally hundreds of millions of dollars hanging on the fate of a match, there can be an awful lot of pressure on the man in the middle to get it right, or get it wrong. Using technology to back-up decisions would alleviate the pressure.

Of course, incorporating video technology won't be a panacea. Nevertheless, it should be a boost to effective governance of matches, and is infinitely better than defending poor refereeing with even poorer excuses. With the hapless officiating that has been on show the last couple of days, I believe few people would agree with FIFA's reactionary attitude. Except, presumably, Signore Moggi.