When refereeing is a "family affair" and a great passion

Let us start with an image: a father and son hugging on a July evening on a basketball court, and it is not just any basketball court.  It is the most famous Italian playground and one of the most famous in Europe, we are in Bologna at the Giardini Margherita where for 42 years a tournament has been staged that has become the oldest and most prestigious outdoor basketball competition in Italy. Here you find simple fans, youngsters, those who don't want to know about quitting because despite their age the passion is too great, top players and referees of course, because without them the game cannot start. Well, let's go back to the initial image, two grown men, both wearing the federal uniform of basketball referees, hugging each other with emotion, the audience applauds and pays the right tribute to the man who has made of his great passion a 'mission' carried out on the parquet refereeing at the highest level and outside as a trainer of the new recruits in the refereeing sector.

In that photo, experiencing a truly intense moment, there are Claudio Indrizzi, a referee with an incredible career with over 20 years of matches refereed in Serie A, A2 and youth leagues, and Matteo Indrizzi, his son who has inherited the same passion. Claudio and Matteo refereed a match together at the Torneo Giardini Margherita 'Walter Bussolari' and for Claudio it was the last match he refereed in his long career. An embrace and emotion that father and son experienced with intensity, but which reached everyone, so many, who sat in the stands around the Bologna’s playground.

“I realised that a part of my life was over because my father closed a chapter of his, a long and satisfying one,' says Matteo Indrizzi, who followed in his father's footsteps, but not by emulation. The passion for the role of referee also came somewhat by chance, but it has not gone away since then. "Until I was 12 years old, I honestly didn't have this great passion for basketball. Then I started, I was passionate about it, but let's say I didn't have those numbers that make the difference, but I liked the court. One day, during a youth tournament, there was a lack of referees and my father suggested I try. I wasn't convinced, but from the moment I started and haven't stopped since. I am in love with what I do and I enjoy doing it".

What did having a high-level referee father mean for someone like you who embarked on the same path? "It was undoubtedly stimulating, but he always let me 'make mistakes' on my own so that I could grow humanly and technically. Then, in the relationship between father and son, having a common passion also enriches a relationship that is already very intense."

The role of the referee, due to an obvious cultural myopia, is too often framed in the wrong way despite being a decisive figure in the balance of the game. How can this incorrect view be changed? "It is a wrong sporting culture and is 'fought' by raising awareness of the role we play as much as possible. We are a team like any other. We train, we study, we have our own work ethic. We are a group where together we grow as people and as referees, comparing ourselves and always trying to improve. Ours is a complex role because on the field it is always possible to make a mistake, we are men, but we have to 'reset' immediately, crystallise that moment to see it again later. Emotionally it is demanding. If a player makes a mistake, he can stop, sit on the bench for a few minutes, unload and start again. We can't do that”.

Why should a young man choose to be a referee? "It's a question I hear often when we do recruitment activities. You can grow up living within the sport you love, seeing it in a different way, but feeling the same emotions, the ones you feel when you enter a big sports hall, walking on the parquet like the champions who are going to compete from there. These are incredible emotions”.

The referee is an athlete like the others who compete on the court. He is one who plays a fundamental but different role. A good referee does not have to be authoritarian, authoritative yes, professional, knowledgeable, empathetic, able to decide in a split second. Like the athletes, he must have all the necessary tools at his disposal to carry out his role in the best possible way, and Macron has been at their side for years, supplying them with high-performance technical clothing designed to meet their needs. The rest, on the field, is done by them, Claudio and Matteo with their love, passion, seriousness and credibility and the roaring applause on a July evening at the playground of Giardini Margherita, along with a hug that says it all, are the proof.