A direct connection to the 17 Serie A stadiums, eight fixed stations (four for Serie B not yet operational), one monitoring room, 250 km of cable, including 65 km of fiber optics. The Serie A League today unveiled its brand-new VAR Center at the International Broadcast Centre (IBC) in Lissone, just outside Milan.
A two-story building for a total of 2.400 square meters, built in record time in just 4 months thanks also to the collaboration of the Municipality of Brianza. Since the beginning of the championship, 30 people have worked permanently in this center, with peaks of 80 during matches. It is here that the referees designated for VAR arrive during matches to work in isolated rooms, a sort of comfort zone where they can make decisions in absolute serenity.
The presentation was attended by the president of the FIGC Gabriele Gravina, of the Lega Serie A Paolo Dal Pino, of the AIA Alfredo Trentalange, the designator Gianluca Rocchi, the CEO of the Lega A Luigi De Siervo and the mayor of Lissone Concettina Monguzzi. A center entirely made in Italy, one of a kind. “With this centralized VAR Room we are entering a new era,” said Gravina during his speech. “It is a great pleasure, a dream come true,” added the number 1 of via Allegri.
“It is a structure that represents excellence in football, but I would say in Italian sport”. “The FIGC was the first in the world to launch the use of technology without losing the charm of football”, Gravina recalled. “In this way, referees can do their job without fear and abandoning sometimes specious prejudices”, he continued.
The VAR room “is a very innovative place that I hope will change the perception of the League, the championships and the seriousness with which the refereeing issue is addressed in the coming months and years,” Dal Pino said later. “It is a long-term vision that puts us ahead of other leagues in Europe,” he added, “no one has a VAR Room like ours.”
“The idea is to internalize a series of skills. The League is already autonomous, we are ready to create our content in the best way for all distribution channels”, declared the CEO De Siervo, also referring to the production center with which the League intends to reach the much-desired channel in its own right in the future. Satisfaction was also expressed by the president of Aia Trentalange and by the Serie A designator Rocchi. The centralized VAR Room “is a unique and incredible opportunity. In this way the referee can be put in a position to make fewer mistakes”, declared Trentalange.
“This is the future, there is no going back. On November 18th there will be a meeting here with all the referees to show them the center,” added Rocchi. With the refereeing leaders it was also an opportunity to take stock of the referees’ performance in these first days of the championship. “We can do better, I am satisfied with the commitment,” said Trentalange who then returned to one of his goals, that of having the referees speak after the games. “It is a dream of mine. I think we will get there gradually,” he said.
For his part, Rocchi dismissed the idea of a refereeing class that is refractory to using VAR. “It would be crazy to even think that a referee would refuse to go to VAR, if I found out that referee would no longer referee,” declared the referee designator. Finally, on the controversy over some cases from last weekend, he replied: “Since there have been episodes in which subjectivity was the main part, we must accept the fact that the referee evaluates it differently than the majority of people.” Not a small problem…
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