Capello statement to clarify ‘referees are a mafia’ comments after controversy

Fabio Capello has released a statement to ‘clarify’ his comments calling referees ‘a mafia’ organisation. ‘It was taken out of context.’

The comments were made during an interview with Spanish newspaper Marca, and hit headlines in Spain and Italy.

The former Juventus, Roma, Milan, Real Madrid and England coach lashed out at the officials following recent decisions and the confusing use of VAR.

“Referees are a mafia. They don’t want to have any former players involved with VAR, those who know the movements in football, those movements that players make to stop themselves, to help themselves,” said Capello.

However, he released a formal statement via the media this evening in a bid to calm some of the controversy sparked by those words.

“With regards to the comments reported in the interview with Spanish newspaper Marca, Fabio Capello wants to specify that when he used the term ‘mafia’ in reference to referees, he only did so to make clear that Italian officials work like an extremely closed off organisation, who rarely accept moments of discussion and do not seem open to allowing current or former sporting figures into the VAR room.

“This is something Capello has suggested many times, and which is made clear repeatedly in the rest of the interview.”

The Video Assistant Referees are all former referees or assistants who have either retired or been moved over to the VAR booth rather than working on the pitch.

Elsewhere in the interview with Marca, Capello does state that he would prefer current or former players to be involved in the process of VAR evaluations.

He warns that the focus is on freeze-frames and slow-motion rather than evaluating the movement of players in real time, making contact seem worse than it really was.