The referee Rapuano and the message on yellow cards bets before Inter-Empoli- Corriere.it

A message sent tod Antonio Rapuano, Serie A referee, a few minutes before the Inter-Empoli match, cost Claudio Defina dearly, head of the physiotherapists of The Hague, the national association of whistlers: he was disqualified for a year. «You know, with a friend of mine, I sometimes make the bill by betting on the referees’ bookings. Let’s talk on Telegram »: this ambiguous text which led Rapuano himself to immediately report the fact to the arbitration designer Gianluca Rocchi, who in turn reported the incident to the federal prosecutor’s office, triggering first the referral and then the disqualification.

The Federal National Court has delivered its verdict on Dafina, with the reconstruction of the incident: Delfina was deferred on 9 March 2023 «for having, in the afternoon of 23 January 2023 on the eve of the Inter vs Empoli match scheduled for 8.45 pm on the same day and for the arbitration direction of which was designated the EA Mr. Antonio Rapuano, contacted the latter AIA member on his mobile phone number, also through instant messaging platforms WhatsApp and Telegramrepresenting to the same to do occasionally with a friend (or to bet from time to time on the total number of bookings handed out during a given match), thus giving the interlocutor to understand that he wants to know in advance the number of bookings that he allegedly inflicted the same during the course of the match that he was supposed to direct in the evening (evidently thinking of being able to acquire useful information in this way in order to be able to play a winning “bill” on the sporting event that would take place in a few hours ». For Dafina came the disqualification of one year.

Rapuano’s reaction to the message was immediate: «As soon as he heard Defina’s words, he immediately responded to them with an angry tone ‘what the c…. are you saying’ interrupting the conversation, blocking the Defina phone number from entering himself and immediately informing the CAN AB Manager G. Rocchi of the occurrence, as well as the AE D. Orsato as Representative of the Arbitrators in activity».

Defina asked to be heard in the prosecutor’s office and tried to clarify his position: «My idea was to evaluate the possibility of creating an app to create odds in betting for the world of referees, in particular as regards bookings. So I contacted Rapuano and told him via whatsapp that I could hear us on Telegram only because knowing that we were talking about bets to avoid misunderstandings I thought it was better for him to feel safer on a chat but the aim was exclusively to ask if there was a reliable site to be able to acquire numbers and statistics relating to referees’ bookings, unfortunately I was unable to explain this concept”.

The Federal Prosecutor’s Office did not consider Defina’s justifications suitable, and referred it: «The justification thesis offered by Mr. Defina – reads the press release – has no credibility in the light of the fact that the same had asked, via whatsapp, to the AE Mr. Rapuano to use Telegram ».