The scandalous audios that led to Castrilli's departure from the Chilean football arbitration commission

On January 27, Huachipato won 1-0 against Deportes Copapió in the match corresponding to the second match of the promotion and thus managed to stay in the top flight of Chilean football, after the 3-2 that he had won in the first leg. The match held in Talcahuano was resolved by a criminal controversy marked by Cris Martínez and whistled by the referee Francisco Gilabert, whose viralized audios this week triggered the dismissal of Chilean arbitration boss Javier Castrilli.

In the audios published by ADN Radio, Gilabert recalls the dialogue he had with the VAR in that duel after being fouled within the area. They called him from the booth because they had warned that there was no infringement, as can be seen in the videos published days later by the Chilean football association (ANFP), and that therefore the error had to be corrected. When approaching the monitor, the judge acknowledged his mistake and warned that he would proceed to collect a corner. Until that moment, everything seemed to be normal, but something strange happens then.

“The VAR calls me, I'm going to see, I see that it's not a criminal, I'm going to go out with a corner kick and they say 'Francisco! please, just a moment. Analyze the shirt. I see the shirt and I see it being pulled, but I said 'It looks like a game action, I'm going to go with a corner kick'”. But from the VAR, they insisted: “'Francisco, please, analyze the shirt, 'and there I understood that something had happened. There was, I don't know, something weird.”

Gilabert then decided to charge a penalty in favor of Huachipato, despite the fact that he and the cabin had agreed that there was no fault. Martinez scored the goal, the home team won and then stayed in the top flight of Chilean football.

“The match ends and the VAR tells me, 'Good thing you got the penalty, it's good you understood us. ' 'But what happened? , 'They called us from Santiago, that you had to collect penalty'”. Gilabert, who makes it clear in his audios what happened, acknowledged that he does not know exactly who gave the order for that foul to be beaten, but he has a firm suspicion: “I thought that (Osvaldo) Talamilla or Castrilli have some play with Huachipato's balls. I think it's the closest thing.”

After such a scandal, local newspaper La Tercera reported that ANFP authorities met with Castrilli to inform him that “he would be removed from his duties while the investigation was being conducted.” However, “both Castrilli, Osvaldo Talamilla and Braulio Arenas, the other members of the commission, did not accept, so they were dismissed.”

“We cannot allow football to continue to transmit impunity. We want football to have transparency. It's a great sport, it's the best discipline. We must reduce the possibility of any mistake”, had been the words of the former Argentine referee when he took up his new role in which he did not reach 7 months.

It is worth remembering that the Chilean union of referees began a strike in protest against the dismissal of 11 colleagues following the decision of Javier Castrilli, before he left office. The president of the federation, Pablo Milad, supported the dismissals and did not rule out hiring foreign judges. The judges decided to take a measure of strength and for the time being it is unknown what will happen to the ninth date of the local championship scheduled for the weekend.

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