Jose Mourinho sent off for a gesture he made towards referee in Roma draw

AS Roma’s reign under Jose Mourinho has been a roller coaster.

The Portuguese coach is seldom out of the spotlight for more than a week at a time, and as recent as last month, he questioned his team’s mentality after they lost to Juventus by a score of 3-1.

A 2-2 against Verona on Saturday shows that you can expect to see some Mourinho controversy anytime Roma play.

Referee Luca Pairetto became fed up with Mourinho’s antics in the second half and sent him off.

What happened?

When Mourinho was done whining, he had the audacity to make a phone call motion to Pairetto, and a closer look revealed that it could have been an unintentionally dishonest maneuver at first glance.

Mourinho made a ‘Telephone’ gesture at referee Pairetto,
Refering to his father, a referee, who was banned as part of Calciopoli (match fixing scandal in 2006)

Jose knows Serie A pic.twitter.com/gwskyDZ4xa

— MourinhoXtra™ (@Mourinho_Xtra) February 19, 2022

As pointed out by @francescalcio_ on Twitter, the gesture was indeed a reference to Pairetto’s dad, Pierluigi, who was involved in the Calciopoli refereeing scandal that marred Italian football in 2006.

Something about Calciopoli

There was a controversy called Calciopoli, in which Juventus executives were implicated in influencing Serie A refereeing assignments. After being sentenced to 42 months in jail and a 16-month suspension from football, the head of the Italian Referees’ Association, Pierluigi Pairetto was eventually found not guilty.

The incident came to light after wiretaps uncovered tens of thousands of hours of conversation that would have otherwise gone unnoticed.

That gesture was pretty bold from the Roma boss!