MOSCOW, August 15, Andrey Mikhailov. Former Italian referee Daniele Orsato said that he has left the Expert Refereeing Commission under the President of the Russian Football Union (ERC RFU) because he received a job offer that cannot be combined with his work on the commission.
On Tuesday, the RFU announced on its official website that Orsato had been included in the ERC. According to La Gazzetta dello Sport, he refused the job the very next day. On Thursday, the chairman of the RFU Refereeing Committee Pavel Kamantsev announced the Italian's withdrawal from the ERC experts.
«»In recent days, there has been a lot of conflicting information in the press regarding my cooperation with the RFU as an ESC expert and my future. I would like to personally clarify in order to avoid misunderstandings and misinterpretation of my words by journalists. First of all, I would like to thank the leadership of the RFU for the interesting an offer that I received and accepted in August. I began working as part of the RFU ESC last week, confident that my experience and knowledge in football refereeing will be in demand in Russian football for a long time. Nevertheless, life and work. in football sometimes they take unexpected turns,” Orsato told reporters.
«What came as such a surprise to me was the opportunity for another job, which appeared immediately after I started working as an ESC expert. Unfortunately, it is impossible to combine this work with the activities of an ESC RFU expert. After discussing this situation with my family, I decided to leave from the ESC experts, I would like to emphasize that in Russia I was able to verify the highest level of professionalism of my colleagues working in football, and the competence of the management of the refereeing department. I wish my colleagues good luck and success in their work,” he added.
The Italian worked at the last two European Championships. At the 2022 World Cup, he refereed the semi-final match between Argentina and Croatia. In 2020, Orsato refereed Paris Saint-Germain and Bayern in the Champions League final. In the same year, the International Federation of Football History and Statistics (IFFHS) recognized him as the best referee of the year.