Tracking social media during the Juventus–Napoli match really was an education in the way people are determined to view all decisions through the narrow lens of paranoia, writes Susy Campanale.
For most of the 80 minutes, Partenopei supporters and their media representatives were adamant that the referee had ‘fixed’ it to favour Juve by not booking any of the Turin players, including Federico Gatti for a half-hearted but for a moment full-fisted whack to the side of Kvicha Kvaratskhelia’s head.
Suddenly, the Old Lady has two goals disallowed and the tide turns, the same people who were until minutes earlier defending the officials now insist the VAR is ‘under orders’ to ensure Napoli win, part of the same grand conspiracy to dock them 15 points and prevent their Champions League qualification.
It comes after two weeks of Napoli protesting high and low about the refereeing decisions in the Champions League quarter-final against Milan, when the exact same challenge from Rafael Leao seen from the same multiple angles was decried as a blatant penalty by some media outlets in Italy and a fantastic tackle by others in Europe.
When the VAR technology was first being tested out, I warned that anyone thinking this was a panacea to cure all ills was kidding themselves, because as long as there is a subjective decision, there will always be people arguing about it. When you’re in Italy, that means adding on conspiracy theories and the assumption everyone is out to get them, creating a truly toxic mix.
This reduces all debate into an ‘us vs. them’ mentality and the parties simply refuse to listen to each other. If you think for example that Leao challenge was risky, but not quite meeting the standard of ‘clear and obvious error’ for VAR to intervene, you are inevitably being biased or in the pocket of a big club. Nuance goes out the window, just as it does in any discussion on social media nowadays.
We must learn that if there are subjective decisions like football tackles, we won’t all agree on the same interpretation. That is the entire point of subjectivity. That is its entire definition. Instead, we have fallen into this ugly trap of assuming anyone who doesn’t see things exactly the way we do has to either have an ulterior motive for their bias or simply be an idiot, someone not worth listening to. Football fans get locked into their echo chambers every bit as much as people discussing politics or films or music.
It might seem hard to believe, but some challenges really are at the limit of foul and fantastic tackle. It has long been said by pundits, that is a foul in Italy, but in England they’d never give it. We keep urging the Italian officials to be more European and let the game flow, then complain when a risky lunge gets a bit of man and ball.
The alternative of course is to give the VAR more power to intervene and send the referee back to the on-field review, even when it is not a clear and obvious error, but rather one open to this level of interpretation. But then you slow the game down and there is absolutely no guarantee the referee seeing it again won’t simply make the same call.
It’s reported Lazio are preparing a dossier of all the refereeing errors that have gone against them this season. There are also several alternative tables on various Italian sites showing which teams were most damaged from mistakes and on the Calciomercato.com version Lazio benefited more than anyone other than Salernitana. Roma are another who complain constantly, yet seem to have more in their favour than against in this chart.
Of course, that’s only one site, as others have them exactly where they ought to be. That’s the problem with drawing up a list of refereeing errors and the effect on the table – nobody can fully agree on what constitutes an error. So we are back to square one, refusing to accept one man’s trash tackle is another man’s treasure of a challenge.
Twitter: @SusyCampanale