Capello calls referees ‘a mafia’ and recommends how to fix VAR

Former Milan, Real Madrid, Roma, Juventus and England head coach Fabio Capello has lashed out at the standard of refereeing in today’s game, labelling officials ‘a mafia’, and has one recommendation as to how to ‘fix’ VAR: ‘Put a former player in there’. 

Capello gave an in-depth interview to Spanish outlet Marca, discussing his time in charge of Real Madrid amongst various other topics. 

Capello was also asked for his opinions on the current state of refereeing and the seemingly increasing number of errors involving VAR decisions. 

“Leave it, leave it, that’s a topic I get very angry about,” Capello said. 

“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 etc. 

“And a lot of times, they make decisions that are incorrect because they haven’t played themselves and they don’t recognise these movements. 

“A player gets touched in the face,  throws himself to the ground and they whistle. But why whistle? If I’m 1.90m tall and the other player is 1.75m, my arm is at the height of his face. Why would you blow? It drives me crazy. Crazy.” 

Capello believes that including at least one former player in the VAR control room would go a long way to ‘fixing’ refereeing reviews. 

“Put one (former player) in there, telling the referee: ‘Well, I don’t think it’s a penalty’, or ‘I do’. With UEFA, we analysed 20 situations in which penalties were awarded. When reviewed by former players and coaches, six of them were given as penalties and 14 were not.”