Serie A leaders Milan are said to be furious after inexperienced referee Livio Marinelli was assigned to their game against Bologna.
The club has been protesting for several months that refereeing decisions went against them with some errors, particularly the mistake of blowing the whistle early for a free kick so the Junior Messias goal against Spezia did not count.
Moments later, Spezia counter-attacked and got the winning goal.
Milan coach Stefano Pioli and the club directors have been vocal in calling for more experienced referees to deal with what is after all the current leader’s games.
It seems as if the appeals have been ignored, because Marinelli will officiate Milan’s match with Bologna this weekend.
He has only 10 Serie A games under his belt, along with four in Serie B and one in the Coppa Italia.
Meanwhile, the VAR for this match is Aleandro Di Paolo, the same official who suggested Milan’s stoppage-time goal against Napoli be disallowed for Olivier Giroud’s offside position interfering with play.
The Rossoneri had argued Giroud was on the ground underneath a Napoli player, so could not be interfering with play.
#MilanBologna a #Marinelli: i rossoneri si lamentano e l’Aia risponde con un arbitro da 10 gare in Serie A https://t.co/81KDIHEwFu pic.twitter.com/WR1uR9YpKT
— calciomercato.com (@cmdotcom) March 30, 2022
Who exactly is “furious”?
That fury should be directed at the players who are not performing well enough to put those games to bed. They are teams we should be 3 goals up on. Just like the last 2 games where we just scraped by against relatively poor teams.
Yes, some ref decisions have been atrocious, as with all teams but Milan cannot change that. What can be changed is we should play against the small teams in the same way we play against the big teams. The league would be wrapped up by now if we had.
Speechless. Doesn’t the top of the table dogfight not warrant a little more kid gloves with 8 games to go? After the debacles of previous matches.
If this was Juve their voice would be heard loud and clear ad that would not have been allowed to happen again. Not saying that in a bad way Juventini, just that they won’t accept those calls and heads would roll
Hopefully it’ll all go well and football will be the winner on Monday night with no talk of referees.
LMAO
Either someone at the top really hates Milan or simply another match fixing robbery is incoming.
Otherwise why would they cause more controversy with this decision after the Spezia and Udinese matches?
Totally agree @Milan Fan
We’re getting into conspiracy theory realms here folks. And reading the article again I don’t believe this attitude would be coming from inside the club. Its defeatist, looking for excuses, instead of putting teams to the sword when we should.
Football is not and never will be about 3-0 wins every week, its about dragging yourself through the entire season through thick and thin taking 1-0 wins when you can, taking 1-1 draws if you have to. Playing badly sometimes and getting a result is what makes you win the league, what makes you lose a league is getting referees taking winning goals away from you after you have scored and giving you a free kick instead, disallowing goals for offside when the player is lying on his back like a turtle with another player on top of him, allowing players to handball and score and many other “incidents”. If it happens once you can call it an excuse, if it has happened 3-4 times costing your club real points its is something else. I fully expect the dossier Milan are composing to go to the court of Arbitration and Sport if we lose the title by a few points.
@1MIKEJ is right. I don’t want to invent any conspiracy theories but expecting to put every team to the sword each week is wishful thinking. No game is easy before it’s played, at least not in Serie A. Scudetto winners have a long history of winning matches ugly when needed.
There’s no other way to come on top at the end of a long season, and Milan are barely even among the top 3 squads in the league, so these errors are costly as it’s already apparent that the champion will be decided by only a few points difference if any this season.
Ffs just give milan the title then, tired of them b*tching every week.