AIA’s Gianluca Rocchi: “Pasalic-Kone was not a penalty.” | OneFootball

AIA designator Gianluca Rocchi released a statement concerning the much talked about episode involving a called-off penalty for Roma in their defeat to Atalanta.

During the DAZN program, Open VAR, the penalty awarded by Sozza in Atalanta-Roma for the contact between Koné and Pasalic, later revoked with the on filed review, was analyzed. An episode that made Claudio Ranieri furious.

“From the referee’s perspective, contact seems like something else, so one can also understand the referee’s choice. It’s clear that the VAR proposes, the first camera it proposes, in my opinion is the best camera because it has a totally different point of view from the one Sozza has on the pitch and which clearly convinces the referee to change his decision.”

“We’ve done a lot of important work on these types of contact and in my opinion we’re also very consistent because we’ve had several situations that we’ve evaluated in the same way. The aim is to reduce light penalties, nobody wants them and so we’ve followed the requests, so to speak, of football from this point of view. At the end of the year we’ll take stock, but you see we have really important positive numbers on this aspect and maintaining the line we’ve given ourselves this is a penalty that cannot be awarded.”

“I agree with Sozza about simulation because simulating is one thing and contact is another. This is contact that doesn’t lead to a penalty but it doesn’t necessarily have to be a simulation. I wouldn’t want to pass on the concept that simulation is useful for reinforce a non-decision because simulation is a big deal and causes a yellow card.”

“In this case the famous play-on would have been the best decision, taken on the pitch it would certainly have made the task easier and would probably have been accepted better, but in this case the review for us is an excellent call.”