Historic decision by RAI, no more Moviola

By: Francesco | July 26th, 2010

moviola

Italy and La Moviola go together like peanut butter and jelly. For as long as there have even been video cameras, Italian calcio has had la Moviola. If you don’t know what la Moviola is, it’s the slow motion replay of various incidents throughout a game that are shown on all calcio analysis shows like La Domenica Sportiva and Controcampo. The incident is rewound and then played about 100 times while the analysts watch and comment and argue about every single thing. The Moviola is usually presented by an ex-referee, like Daniele Tombolini on RAI. The moviola has always brought great controversy, because it shows obvious refereeing errors leading to claims that teams are favored or the refs aren’t up to par and such and the head of the referee association hates it. Well, RAI, who holds the rights to Serie A highlights and shows them on programs like 90 Minuto and Domenica Sportiva, have made a surprising decision today.

RAI director of sport Eugenio De Paoli has made the decision that the moviola will no longer be shown on any RAI programs involving calcio. From now on, referee decisions will be shown like offside or a red card, but they won’t be argued about or discussed or replayed a million times. Well this puts Daniele Tombolini out of a job, which I don’t mind because he’s really annoying to watch. No more moviola controversy, which is a good thing. One of the reasons I would always tape Domenica Sportiva was just so I could fast forward through the ridiculous arguing over moviola replays. There’s really no need for it. Once it’s done it’s done, no arguing or discussion is going to make them change their mind.

In other leagues as far as I know there is no controversy over calls. In the EPL they forget about the bad calls once the game is over, and I’ve never heard of a moviola type thing in the Bundesliga or La Liga or Ligue 1 or the Bermudian Premier Division.

Finally, I can watch Domenica Sportiva and just see highlights and regular discussion. Good move RAI.

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Category: Rumors & News, Serie A

Tags: Calcio, football, Futbol, Italy, Moviola, RAI, Rumors & News, Serie A, Soccer

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alm80

Stupid decision. Instead of bringing more tech onto the field to help the refs in critical moments, the general direction in which FIFA/UEFA are moving is to live, like it's early 20th century outside and cover up blatant mistakes (not sure if all of those are genuine mistakes). Without going too much into the conspiracy, I think it's much more convenient for them to have "influence" over the game this way. For example, that shameful goal by Henry in Euro qualifiers surely wouldn't stand and I'm sure that it was not a "mistake" by the referee.
Drew

Ha -- I had the exact same reaction: "But getting rid of conspiracy-stoking hyper-analysis and endless arguments seems so...un-Italian."
Johonna

Well, the may be no more slow-mo, but the for sure the papers will still dissect every call - they have pages and pages to fill.
agiamba

Impressive decision, but someone else will jump in on it. (Mediaset?) Italians love conspiracy theories and controversy, there's a market for it and something will fill RAI's void.