Calcio: A History of Italian Football. John Foot

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СКАЧАТЬ betrayed’ and ‘Sport is dead in Legnano’. Many were factory workers in their blue overalls.

      These protests were in vain. The league threw the book at Legnano, banning them from playing at home for eleven months (for the rest of 1952). The official report claimed that ‘from the start’ the local fans had been ‘hostile’ to the referee, and that objects had been thrown at, and had hit, Tassini. The referee had also been struck and kicked on his way off the field and in the bar. Finally, there was the attack near the station, at 11.30 p.m. Legnano were held responsible for the whole affair and finished bottom of Serie A, with a mere seventeen points. They came up the next season, and then promptly went down, and have never again played in the top division. Tassini, meanwhile, went on to be a very important figure in the referees’ association in the 1960s.

      The Prince of Referees. Concetto Lo Bello

      Concetto Lo Bello, ‘The Prince’, was the most famous Italian referee of all time. Authoritarian, controversial, brave, narcissistic, he presided, or ruled, over an unrivalled 328 games in Serie A between 1954 and 1974. Lo Bello was also a physical icon. A tall man, he looked extremely distinguished and was always immaculately turned out, with perfectly ironed white shirt collars and a manicured moustache. Lo Bello managed, over the years, to annoy all the big clubs, which would seem to imply that he was as fair as one could be in the difficult world of Italian football. At one point, Juventus even tried to exclude him from their games. Lo Bello’s reaction was to force a grovelling reply from no less a personality than Umberto Agnelli, who was president of Juventus and, for a time, of the football federation, as well as part of the FIAT dynasty.

      Lo Bello was at the centre of a series of memorable public arguments with Milan midfield star Gianni Rivera and manager Nereo Rocco. In 1973, after yet another clash with Lo Bello, who had sent him off, not for the first time, Rocco was interviewed by the press. He analysed Lo Bello’s style: ‘the personality has destroyed the referee’, he argued, ‘he does not referee games, he uses them as a stage on which to show off his show-off behaviour’. Rivera blamed Lo Bello and other referees for Milan’s failure to win three championships in the 1970s (they finished second three times in a row) and they once had this exchange on the field. Rivera: ‘I’m being slaughtered here. I can’t believe you can’t see anything.’ Lo Bello replied with, ‘I give you my word of honour that I can’t see these fouls.’ Rivera came back with, ‘I don’t trust your word of honour.’ He received a four-game ban for his ‘insulting’ riposte.

      The most frequent criticism of Lo Bello’s style was that it made him the star, and not the players or the game. He made his decisions crystal-clear by aggressive use of hand signals, so much so that on at least three occasions players were inadvertently knocked down as he thrust his arms up to signal a free-kick or a sending-off. There is no doubt that Lo Bello was a celebrity on and off the pitch, and he was the first referee to enter the world of politics, becoming a Christian Democrat parliamentary deputy in 1972 (when he was still a referee) and briefly Mayor of Syracuse, his Sicilian home-town, in 1986. Lo Bello’s son, Rosario, also became a leading referee, largely thanks to the reputation of his father. Not surprisingly, given his refereeing style, Concetto Lo Bello was at the centre of a number of startling incidents during his long and controversial career.

      Duce, Duce! Fiorentina-Cagliari. Serie A. 12 October 1969

      Fiorentina were reigning champions, and began the 1969–1970 season in sparkling form, extending their unbeaten run to 29 games. Cagliari, surprisingly, were one of the main challengers for the scudetto that year and the clash before a packed crowd in Florence in October 1969 was between the top two teams in the championship. Cagliari won the game with a controversial penalty, 1–0, after Lo Bello turned down two penalty appeals for Fiorentina, and disallowed an equalizing goal three minutes from the end of the match for a marginal offside. He also sent off Florence star Amarildo and a Cagliari player for fighting. It was his 261st game in charge in Serie A.

      The Florence public did not take kindly to these decisions. Towards the end of the game a familiar, rhythmical chant rang around the stadium, directed at the referee. The meaning of the slogan harked back to the fascist era: Du-ce, Du-ce. Lo Bello was a dictator, an authoritarian referee, a fascist. Bottles were thrown onto the field, a fight broke out in the tunnel and Lo Bello was trapped inside the changing rooms for a couple of hours. The referee and linesmen were escorted from the ground in a police van and the Cagliari bus was stoned. The post-match reports had little to do with the game itself. Instead, they concentrated on one man. ‘Lo Bello has “written” the championship table’, screamed the Corriere della Sera. Leading sports journalist Gino Palumbo wrote that the game had been ‘a show, with only one star’. The story of the game was ‘the story of how a referee, when he so desires, can become the master of a match and conduct it as he sees fit, challenging the rules, regulations, the players and the fans’, he continued. ‘This is not a report on Fiorentina-Cagliari, this is a report on the one-man show which Concetto Lo Bello performed on Florence’s ground.’ However, Palumbo also praised Lo Bello’s ‘courage’ on the pitch.

      Fiorentina paid heavily for the incidents during and after the match. They had to play their subsequent home games elsewhere and lost their next away fixture 5–1. The club was also fined for the ‘Duce’ chants – which were described as ‘derisive comments’.²³ It could be argued that the whole fiasco cost Fiorentina a second successive championship, while the Sardinian club went on to win the scudetto. On his return to Florence the following week – for a referees’ meeting – Lo Bello was given a two-man guard at the city station. As with many Italian footballing controversies, the Lo Bello ‘case’ also crossed over into Parliament. A Christian Democrat deputy argued in the debating chamber that the ‘power’ of referees should be limited. Florence fans took refuge in conspiracy theories – ‘they won’t let us win two championships in a row’ – and threatened a fans’ strike. Journalists and football commentators complained about the ‘excessive influence’ exercised by Lo Bello over the outcome of games, and wondered for how long this trend could continue.

      None of this had any effect on Lo Bello’s style. In his next Serie A game, at Vicenza, he ‘identified’ a spectator who had insulted him ‘repeatedly’ from behind the goal, and had his name taken by a plainclothes policeman. The spectator, Walter Giuliani, a 56-year-old lorry-driver, denied the charge, but Lo Bello sued him for defamation. The referee added that Giuliani was ‘not a football fan, but someone who wanted simply to attack me’. Lo Bello’s style led to a number of incidents similar to the Florence ‘riot’ through his long career. In 1948 he was forced to hide in the dressing room after a minor league game. Struck by a stone on the head, he carried on refereeing a game in 1957, and in 1971 he was saved by police in Turin, and chased in his car later, after sending off two Torino defenders. ‘The Prince’ left his mark on every game, and no referee since has dominated discussion or divided Italians in quite the same way. His authoritarian style was linked by some fans to the fascist era. Once again, the referee was associated – unfavourably – with aspects of the Italian state and its administrators.

      White Riot! Naples 1955; Livorno 1967

      In the 1950s and 1960s the most dangerous stadium of all for referees was that of Napoli, first in the old Vomero ground and later at the new San Paolo stadium. On three separate occasions (1955, 1956, 1963) there were mass pitch invasions, and referees were forced to flee. In November 1955, Napoli’s opponents were Bologna. The referee was Mario Maurelli, and Napoli were cruising to victory at 3–0 up with fifteen minutes left. Bologna made a great comeback, however, and snatched a draw with a last-minute penalty. Straight after the penalty was taken, Maurelli blew the final whistle. At that point, the crowd invaded, chasing the referee, who locked himself in the dressing room. Later, the Bologna players were also besieged inside their СКАЧАТЬ