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Coppa Italia semi-final was a night of shame for Italian football, says Napoli chief

ByFootballItalia

Published 28/02/2017 at 22:43 GMT

Napoli director Cristiano Giuntoli said the Juventus penalties in the Coppa Italia semi-final were “shameful and damaging to all of Italian football.”

Napoli and Juventus players

Image credit: AFP

The Partenopei had taken the lead through Jose Callejon, but after the break Juve ended up winning 3-1 with a Gonzalo Higuain strike and two contentious penalties.
Napoli were so infuriated by the situation that they broke their press silence, with Giuntoli telling Rai Sport:
We thought it important to publicly thank the lads for their performance and to say we emerge defeated by two decisions that were not debatable, but shameful and damaging to all of Italian football. On the first penalty, Dybala knocks the ball on and seeks contact for the penalty. I thought the first one was frankly more of a spot-kick, but watching the replay this one isn’t right either. The striker goes looking for the contact. On the second Reina gets the ball, then he certainly cannot disappear and thus contacts the player too. What’s more, that happened after a penalty was not given to us, considering that two of them knocked down one of our players. The decisions were shameful.
Napoli only spoke to RAI Sport with the agreement they would not have any response from the studio.
The official Twitter account of the club also noted: “If you watch the game on RAI, turn the sound down.”
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