released a statement, external<\/a> confirming Rocchi’s suspension following the launch of the investigation by the Milan Public Prosecutor’s Office.<\/p>\nThe body said Andrea Gervasoni, the video assistant referee supervisor for Italy’s two top divisions, has also suspended himself, having been placed under investigation.<\/p>\n
Rocchi, the National Referees Commission’s referee designator for Serie A and Serie B, said in the AIA statement: “This painful and difficult decision, shared with my family, is intended to allow the judicial process to proceed smoothly, from which I am certain I will emerge unscathed and stronger than before.”<\/p>\n
The 52-year-old added: “My great love for my association and my sense of responsibility for the role I hold lead me, above all, to protect such an important group of athletes, whom I do not want to be affected in any way by my circumstances. <\/p>\n
“I await further developments, which I hope will arrive soon to clarify my position.”<\/p>\n
It is alleged that Rocchi was behind the selection of a referee for an Inter Milan game as he was “liked by Inter”. A video assistant referee decision not to intervene when an Inter player elbowed an opponent in another game is also under scrutiny.<\/p>\n
Rocchi is also accused of pressuring a VAR official to encourage a referee to check on the pitchside monitor for a handball offence during Udinese’s 1-0 win over Parma in March last year, according to AGI. <\/p>\n
The referee and VAR official had already decided not to award a penalty but changed their minds, it is claimed, leading to Florian Thauvin scoring the only goal of the game.<\/p>\n
Sporting fraud is a criminal offence in Italy and carries a maximum sentence of six years in prison.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Gianluca Rocchi, the man in charge of assigning referees in Italy’s top flight, has suspended himself following a…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":418683,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[61,60,112],"class_list":{"0":"post-418682","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-sports","8":"tag-ie","9":"tag-ireland","10":"tag-sports"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418682","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=418682"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/418682\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/418683"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=418682"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=418682"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=418682"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}