The referee manager of the top Italian referee, Gianluca Rocchi, following the recent mistakes made by match officials in the last few games, stated:
“We don’t want to punish anyone, but to understand the logic behind the mistake. If it’s understandable, there’s no problem; if it’s illogical or stems from a desire to be a protagonist, then yes, we stop the referee. Our job is to provide the best service to the teams.”
Reasonable words, yet they reveal a more disciplinary than educational mindset — one that risks neither improving referees nor truly serving the teams.
Saying that one wants to “understand the logic of the mistake” may sound like an open attitude. However, without a structured process of analysis, discussion, and review, it remains a mere retrospective evaluation: the mistake is judged more or less acceptable, but the referee is not helped to grow. At a high level, modern referee training should be continuous and focused on understanding the causes of errors — such as pressure, positioning, reading of play, communication with VAR — and on how to prevent them from recurring.
Furthermore, when it is stated that an “illogical or attention-seeking” mistake leads to a referee being suspended, the message is clear: those who make errors are at risk. This does not create a culture of learning, but one of performance anxiety. The referee becomes more concerned with not making mistakes than with interpreting the game correctly. The result is more cautious, less authentic decisions, shaped more by fear of judgment than by the spirit of the game.
Serving the teams means improving overall quality, not stopping the “culprits.” The head of referees says he wants to offer “the best service to the teams.” But suspending those who make mistakes does not improve the overall quality of the referee group — just as substituting a player after one mistake doesn’t improve a team. Teams need referees who are competent, consistent, and calm, not a constant rotation of officials afraid of losing their appointments and income.
The Italian refereeing world is rich in professionalism but often crushed by a culture of blame. What is needed instead is a paradigm shift — one that starts from a systematic analysis of decisions, not to judge, but to learn; one that promotes technical discussion and shared criteria, thereby enhancing continuity and transparency in evaluation. Only in this way can a truly educational system for elite refereeing be built — where referees do not fear being suspended, but feel encouraged to improve.
