Читать книгу Calcio: A History of Italian Football - John Foot - Страница 34

In 1993, a group of left-wing intellectuals met to discuss the tumultuous changes in Italian society. In the space of a few months, all the major political parties had been caught up in a massive corruption scandal, and the whole system seemed on the verge of collapse. The intellectuals argued that Italian civil society was marked by a series of ‘virtuous minorities’. These people – judges, teachers, voluntary workers, nurses – fought daily, heroic and unheralded battles against the ills which had dogged the Italian state since its birth – clientelism (the exchange of all kinds of resources), corruption, organized crime, illegality. Referees were not mentioned by the intellectuals, but perhaps they should have been. In no sector of society were the virtuous minorities so isolated, so hated and so vulnerable as on the football pitches which, every week, play host to hundreds of thousands of matches. In no sector of society was the battle between respect for legality and violence so clear, and so difficult. Were Italy’s arbitri her ultimate ‘virtuous minority’?³

Every week, referees all over Italy went off, on their own, to nondescript small towns to officiate in minor matches. They were almost always unpaid – and might just get their petrol money back, if they were lucky. Yet, they still turned up, on time, on dusty pitches and always in front of small, usually hostile crowds where every insult or complaint could be heard loud and clear. Nobody was there to protect these people – by now men and women – from humiliation, intimidation, violence or the threat of violence.

Why does somebody become a referee in Italy? Nobody knows. Nobody has ever bothered to study this eccentric group of people, the only representatives of the state in the wilderness of Italy’s complicated, weird and angry football world. The chances of fame and fortune, for a referee, were even fewer than for young players. So why do it, at all? Italian football journalists have usually gone for pop-psychological explanations – referees are failures of some kind (as footballers, or simply as people) who like to exercise power. For Gianni Brera, Italy’s most influential football journalist, referees were generally people ‘who had failed as players, or were so badly injured and so old as to be able merely to run after the others, and no longer after the ball’.⁴ They were, he continued, probably ‘sado-masochists’ who enjoyed ordering people around. A football referee, whilst on the pitch, is one of the few institutional figures in the world to exercise complete power. Before TV replays, referees were ‘the only judge, the judge without appeal’ (Gian Paolo Ormezzano). Many therefore argued that a psycho-analyst was needed to understand referees. Sociology might also help us in our quest.

If we look at the jobs held down by the 36 referees who officiated in Serie A in the year 2000, we can get some tentative answers. Of course, for a modern referee, it helps to have a flexible job. Three of the referees listed their jobs as ‘free professionals’, two as ‘financial consultants’, three as bankers, four as shopkeepers or salesmen, and four as ‘insurers’. Others were listed, generically, as ‘businessmen’. Only one was a teacher, another was a policeman. Many came from small towns. The old cliché of the accountant from Peterborough (which is what most referees in the UK in the 1970s seemed to be) appears to be reinforced by this group of top officials. Referees are self-employed, petty bourgeois, conservatives, self-made men. However, there were some exceptions. One referee was a diet consultant, another was an expert in Chinese, one was a wine dealer, and another was a politician.

Where the referee is from is one final, key area, which matters immensely in Italy. Referees are usually listed with their place of birth (Ceccarini ‘from Livorno’, etc.) and one of the key federation rules states that no referee can officiate in a match in which his home-town is involved. This rule is now extended to the whole province where a referee lives. Regional identity is seen as a source of bias, per se, but is also extremely localized, and it also works both ways. A referee from Pisa would not be allowed to officiate in a match involving Pisa or their hated rivals, Livorno, for example. Referees are always under suspicion, by definition.

Italian referees can be compared to sheriffs in the Wild West (although referees are armed only with a whistle): trying to impose the increasingly flimsy authority of law and order in the face of mistrust, hostility and violence. Perhaps they should be seen as the real heroes of our time – taking legality courageously out to the killing fields and challenging, time and again, with dignity and respect, the disdain for the law so widespread in Italian society. Are referees like anti-mafia judges in Sicily, anti-corruption magistrates in Milan, honest journalists in Rome?

Very few Italians share this view. Brera wrote this about referees. ‘In almost every case, we are dealing with either a frustrated person, someone who has need of transfer [a psychological term] in order to pretend to themselves that they exist and have free will; or a bully…who insists that the law be respected even at the cost of upsetting others.’⁵ Brera’s judgement is shared by most of his compatriots. The referee is always a bastard, a cornuto. This literally means ‘cuckold’ – or ‘horned’ – and is often accompanied by a hand gesture where the little and forefingers are raised. Cornuto is also used as an insult to imply that a referee should be at home with his wife rather than refereeing. Other common insults imply that referees are venduti (sold, corrupt, crooks). Bizarrely, whenever Italian teams are playing in Europe, or the national team is in action, Italian commentators usually claim that their officials ‘are the best in the world’. In comparison with others, Italian referees are praised to the skies. At home, they are always cornuti.