Referee Marco Di Bello suspended after controversial calls in the Lazio-Milan match

Referee Marco Di Bello is set to serve a one-month suspension after calling out controversial decisions during Milan’s win over Lazio.

La Gazzetta dello Sport (via TMW) outlines the details behind Marco Di Bello’s expulsion from refereeing Serie A games for a month. The league’s referee designator Gianluca Rocchi has suspended the Brindisian referee for the second time this season as the first came after the Juventus-Bologna match on 27 August last year. 

The only choice which was judged correctly during last night’s game was the contact between Valentin Castellanos and Mike Maignan which received shouts from the Lazio camp for a penalty but it was not something significant. However, most of the decisions after that proved to be controversial, as Lazio had three players sent off.

The AIA would not have liked the red card brandished to Matteo Guendouzi for an alleged reaction foul on Christian Pulisic. The momentum of the match was influenced by the decision to show subsequent red cards to Adam Marusic and Luca Pellegrini. The left-back’s sending-off is deemed to be incorrect as the referee did not stop the game with Castellanos on the ground. Additionally, Di Bello is expected to have lost control of the match as he showed six yellow cards to the Rossoneri players. 

As mentioned before, this is set to be the 42-year-old’s second suspension stint this campaign. He got the first one due to mismanagement of the Juventus-Bologna match during the second matchday when he refused to judge Samuel Iling Junior’s intervention of Dan Ndoye which should have resulted in a penalty. 

Trambak Bhattacherjee | GIFN