The Italian media have found themselves in the firing line for helping Tottenham Hotspur goalkeeper Guglielmo Vicario to embarrass himself this week.
La Gazzetta dello Sport report on the Tottenham goalkeeper today after a social media incident went viral, for the wrong reasons.
The Tottenham goalkeeper was photographed celebrating with his Italy teammates in front of the TV this week as they watched Wales lose to Bosnia on penalties in the World Cup playoffs.
Italy faux-pas
The Italian team, report Gazzetta, celebrated wildly as the ‘favoured Welsh’ were eliminated.
RAI cameras were watching them, videoing the reactions from the Tottenham goalkeeper and others in the player’s lounge. They were in public thanks to their families being at the game.
The incident did not go down well, particularly in Bosnia. They have very much seen the reaction as arrogance from the Italians.
According to Gazzetta, the issue risks becoming a ‘scandal’ but mostly it has ‘slipped into nonsense’.
Italy and their players are already trying to play it down ahead of the game in Bosnia. That is likely to be ‘the most challenging in recent memory’ for the Italians.
RAI in the firing line
Guglielmo Vicario and his teammates haven’t helped that one bit. But according to Telelombardia director Fabio Ravezzani, the issue lies with Rai.
Instead of condemning the Tottenham goalkeeper and his teammates, he questions what the Italian TV station were doing.
”The (grave) mistake was stealing these images and broadcasting them as if we were on Big Brother,” Tutto Juve report him saying.
“This is the point. The images of celebration, filmed without their knowledge and broadcast after they were recorded, certainly hindered the trip to Bosnia. Broadcasting them was an own goal for RAI.”
Now the pressure is on Italy, who face a huge and difficult game is Bosnia against a side and crowd they’ve only helped motivated. Fortunately for Vicario, questions are being asked about why anybody knows rather than why they did it.