The episode that occurred at the Sinigaglia stadium during the championship match between Como and Venice re-proposes in all its gravity a retrograde cultural dynamic that Italian football is still unable to erase. The match director Maria Sole Ferrieri Caputi, an international referee, was made the target of sexist chants and epithets coming from the stands.
Although the federal inspectors on the sidelines did not directly perceive the offenses, Dazn’s environmental microphones clearly recorded unjustifiable phrases such as “Go make pasta with sauce”, “Go vacuum” And “Refereeing is not for youThis is yet another unacceptable behavior that has occurred on the football pitches, a real gender discrimination without any sporting justification.
The investigation by the FIGC Prosecutor’s Office and the role of the Sports Judge
The audio and video material immediately ended up being examined by the sporting justice system. The federal prosecutor Giuseppe Chinè has officially opened an investigation file, requesting additional recordings from the Como Police Headquarters and arranging interviews with the referee Ferrieri Caputi and the service personnel present on the pitch.
The Serie A Sports Judge, Gerardo Mastrandrea, has delegated the investigation of individual and corporate responsibilities to the FIGC Prosecutor’s Office. The framework of sanctions for Como could vary from a financial fine to the partial closure of the sectors of the sports facility, if the structural involvement of the Como fans is ascertained.
The response from The Hague, the condemnation of Como and the need for a cultural change
The reaction of the institutions was not long in coming. The president of The Hague Francesco Massini firmly condemned the incident, recalling that over 2,200 women work in the association, equal to 6.7% of the total workforce. The Como club, owned by the Suwarso family, also distanced itself from the sexist attitudes heard during the match, defining them as unacceptable behavior that damages the image of the club. The tensions on the pitch arose from the management of a penalty first awarded by Ferrieri Caputi for a handball by Milla and then revoked after consulting the monitor suggested by VAR Cosso.
However, reducing what happened to a moment of competitive enthusiasm after an error in judgment would be a serious mistake. It is intolerable that the authority of a race director should still be questioned through patriarchal stereotypes and personal insults rather than on a strictly regulatory level. Maria Sole Ferrieri Caputi is a highly qualified professional who works at the highest levels of the football movement: continuing to attack her role with gender-related insults demonstrates how the path towards respect and equality on sporting stages is still enormously far away.
