Paparesta ready to return
Wednesday 23 September, 2009
Gianluca Paparesta, the referee who Luciano Moggi famously locked in a dressing room, is ready to return to the game.
He has been undergoing medical tests and hopes to meet with Pierluigi Collina, the chief referee designator, to discuss his return later this week.
“I have made the medical visits, which are an introduction to professional activity. Now I am waiting for a call from the Italian Refereeing Association,” Paparesta said.
“I am already available and ready to return on the pitch seeing as I have been given positive results from my medical.
“Now I hope to return as soon as tomorrow, as there is a referees meeting, and I hope, with the utmost serenity, that Collina calls me.”
Asked about the controversy surrounding his return, Paparesta said: “If these is a desire for me to re-enter, in the utmost spirit of collaboration, I am ready, otherwise it's sufficient to explain the motive for there not being this desire. It's not obligatory to be a referee. I will do something else.
“We are not talking about erasing the past. There are objective facts. I am the only referee to have been completely absolved by the Napoli tribunal more than a year ago.
“The ordinary justice department has also absolved me. The administrative justice department has said that I shouldn't be excluded, so if there is the desire to readmit me, fine.
“Otherwise I repeat that for me it's not an obligation to return to refereeing. For me, it was important to show that there wasn't a single reason for not continuing my activity [as a referee].
“I don't look at the faults of others. Certainly there have been mistakes that were my responsibility, but I believe that they were blown out of proportion a little too much. It was the magistrates who were the first to completely absolve me,” Paparesta concluded.
Ref: Moggi never locked me in
Friday 30 January, 2009
Referee Gianluca Paparesta insists one of the big Calciopoli scandals was untrue. “Luciano Moggi never locked me in the dressing room.”
When the trial prompted Juventus’ demotion in 2006, one of the stories most widely circulated was that Paparesta was locked in the dressing room under the Stadio Granillo after Moggi became infuriated at the 2-1 defeat to Reggina.
“I can finally tell the only absolute truth about that day, November 6 2004. Moggi never locked me in the dressing room,” Paparesta told La7 television.
“Moggi and [director Antonio] Giraudo were both agitated and complained about my performance, but nobody locked me in.
“They merely complained in an angry way because I had not given their side a penalty and disallowed an equaliser just before the final whistle – something that proved I certainly wasn’t trying to favour Juve.
“Then they left and my only mistake was not putting that incident in my report.”
Moggi bragged in some wiretapped phone conversations that he had locked Paparesta in and the failure to report that is what prompted the referee to be suspended.
“This is not just my version, it is the truth,” assured the official who is appealing against his ban. “I was not on my own, as the assistants, fourth official and an observer were present. If something had happened, they would’ve reported it.”
Paparesta did call Moggi after the incident, but assured it had nothing to do with their argument in Calabria.
“That was a mistake. I called him because there was an incredible trial by media against me after the game and Moggi was bragging about it.
“If he really thought I was incapable of continuing my job, then he should have made a formal request to the authorities.”